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I.

 

I never learned to ride a bicycle
when I was young.
I used to watch neighbourhood kids
fly by and envy their ‘flurry of feet freedom’.
I would say to myself, ‘One day…’
But that day never came.

‘Flurry of feet freedom’ wasn’t something 
that I had access to.
Instead I remember my mother
and the two kingdoms she was lord over
to protect her children.
One: the front yard
where she would sit on our bright red porch
while we marched around
in pretend worlds and bright smiles.
And two: the backyard 
that she surveyed from deep within the kitchen
making symphonies from ingredients
while keen eyes kept watch over each of us.
1...2...3...4 —
Five. 
Five of us to make sure
always came in each evening. 
Five lives that my mother knew
if her eyes left
she would not know what to do. 

So this rectangular boundary of 
front to backyard became the world I knew.
And we created realities out of nothing
new games and new escapes
within those invisible walls. 
Because what was a mother to do
when to the North across the street
were Confederate flags the size of
her own children?
And no one told her that old Union States
would want to wave the flag
of Plantation Lands and Chains. 
And to the East the streets curved
to backcountry roads of hidden terrors
where no one goes looking 
for missing Black children. 
When to the West 
she heard of active Klan groups
that remind you ghosts
in white sheets may make you laugh,
but there is nothing funny about
white men in ghostly costumes. 

Mama didn’t need to see them burn a cross
to feel the noose swinging in the air. 
She didn’t need to look back South
behind us to know
that prevention was better than cure; 
that’s the line she always used to tell me.
I have lived this for so long.
And while it has saved me,
I look back sometimes and dream
that I too could be ‘flurry of feet freedom’.
Instead of a girl who learned
that to live to see her dreams,
those dreams first had to be boxed into
rectangular life jacket yards.
The kind my mother sewed
with bare hands to save us. 

I grew strong
and I would still see the world
each summer when all seven of us
would pile inside the car
and drive across the country
to new sites and places.
And every time we returned I would know
even more just how man-made
rectangular boxes were and how
unjust the limitations of my movement felt,
and the love it took to maintain
my forward motion. 

 

II.

​

Love propelled me across the ocean.
Leaving behind boxes and limitations,
finally able amidst fresh air to 
reach ‘flurry of feet freedom’.
My body flying across landscapes,
reminding myself that I am still free.
 
I return home, 
holding tight to these new experiences.
Now ready to face the rusting bicycle 
strewn across the corner of the garage.
An unused reminder of the past.
I grip the metal bars tight and
push off towards the sunset
when my dad hops on another bike
yelling at me to ride with him around the neighbourhood.

Now, I didn’t even know 
my dad could ride a bicycle.
When I was dreaming of ‘flurry of feet freedom’
with mum's cooking wafting in the air,
daddy was working two jobs
flurry of feet for my freedom. 

So I pound the bike pedals hard
to catch up to him
as I think about all that has been lost.

It’s the small things that the world
takes from us; 
I’m 29.

 

III.

​

Months go by
and I find myself back home again.

In the garage remains
my rusted bicycle.
Its seat still comically low for me
but I am excited all the same.
As I get ready to ride,
my dad comes out of the house
and says, 
‘Go ahead and ride.
I’ll be outside mowing the lawn.’
And I laugh.
Because I’m 30.

But as I push off around the block
I don’t have to look back to know
that my dad is still watching me.
That even though mama’s older
and symphonies have become songs
she has never
stopped counting to five.
 
I round the corner 
back towards the house
and I pedal slowly.
Wanting to stay grounded.

There.

In that moment.

In this freedom.