MonHaibun: Black girl, with skateboard

with green wheels, on the bus to Denver.

I follow her to the bathroom, admire her sideways as I enter the marble stalls. Mentally rewrite the scene in which I ride down the driveway in Kansas City, fall on my ass after two seconds, never climb on top of a skateboard again.

She wore a studded belt low across her skinny hips. On the bus, I was just reading the summer 2008 issue of Ms., the article about body image. I was that skinny once and I wouldn’t mind being that skinny again.

I think of it as a matter of determination, not poor body image. A matter of how many huge salads I can eat before I have to splurge. Can I eat enough raw food to get down to 125 pounds again? Just for the thrill of being back there before I turn 50?

Deprivation is so last century—
it’s what we eat, not how much.

5 thoughts on “MonHaibun: Black girl, with skateboard

  1. Black girl with skateboard with green wheels… an image that makes me yearn for a moment from my youth. I’d like the thrill of riding a skateboard one more time, even weighing 20 pounds more than I did back when I sped down hills without a thought for breaking my neck.

  2. Where do you hide it? In your big toe? I don’t believe you, so don’t bother trying to convince me. You must have been a stick figure as a young wanna-be skateboarder, and it was probably just a stiff breeze that knocked you on your ass.

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