Kayla

16

The Bike and the Boy

A bike stands
quickly pushed up against the railing.
Its rider,
nowhere to be seen.
But the bike remembers.
It sits,
gently taking the color yellow
from the sun,
remembering.

Everything about the pairing,
boy and bike,
seems wrong.
His legs, too short,
the bikes pedals, too long.
On every push,
the boy stretches
and
stretches.
When he gets tired, he
pushes
and waits for the moment the pedal will return from its circuit
To come back to its home on the sole of his worn sneaker.

Sometimes,
in eagerness,
the pedal spins wildly.
Too fast.
Too much.

It stops itself in the skin of the boy’s back ankle.
*ouch*

When the pedal stops,
the bike cringes.

And the boy pedals on.

He likes to go fast,
sometimes trying to beat cars to their destination.
When the lush air isn’t enough at walking speed,
the bike plows through mile after mile
with its rider attentive
and blissful.
The same wind that whistles through the boy’s ears
places pins where his cheeks are heated
and his nose is straight.

But still,
the boy pedals on.

One day the bike..
it hit a stump.
Not a very big one,
But it was big enough.
Sailing through the winds he had admired only a moment before,
he landed with a jarring tumble.
The bike couldn’t move to help,
to aid its boy.
It could only project the coldness of its metal
hidden under stolen sun.
It could not give the boy the warmth,
or kindness,
or thanks, it wanted to.
Never.

The boy stood.

And the bike watched him walk away
with blood’s fine trail
making maps on his knees.

So here the bike stands.
quickly picked up
and pushed up against the neighbors’ fence
by a passerby.
Grudgingly soaked in the bath of the sticky, sweet sun.
Feeling powerless.

But the next day,
The boy came looking.

And he pedals on.