Happy Place
By Sadie Mae Fischer-Diotte, '20
It starts on a hill; a steady, smooth stretch of black pavement.
It’s the thick kind that reminds you of playgrounds when you were small.
Bloody knees, scraped palms, trying not to cry.
Metaphysical familiarity
and intangible comfort.
Slightly unsettling slope twists abruptly at its base. Confidence quivers.
But it gets me there fast, it gets me there easy; in fact, it gets me there with no effort at all.
And so I don’t complain.
Gravity escorts the board and myself down and through. Down tree and fallen leaf gauntlet that scores the sky above and around me, through air so sweet you can taste it in the sweat that settles on the furrow of your lip.
Friction subdues fleetingly.
Friction gets its shit together and balance comes easy.
Knees straighten, muscles lax. Stale, collateral breath replaces itself, as azure, jet-scrape sky encompasses.
The feeling is free.
The feeling is of something greater than me, as the chorus in my ear breaks like a wave and I’m swallowed.
It’s a bridge,
made up of the kind of heavy, big-city steel it feels like you never see up close.
The bolts fit the diameter of my fist.
I perch myself like a nirvanic Buddha, closest to its perfect center as I can,
and let my breath express,
examining its shakes and wobbles,
where it catches and snags.
Fishermen lines on the water bed below.
It’s a bridge,
made up of some invincible asbestos that allays my lungs,
settling their nature steady.
It’s the thick kind that reminds you of playgrounds when you were small.
Bloody knees, scraped palms, trying not to cry.
Metaphysical familiarity
and intangible comfort.
Slightly unsettling slope twists abruptly at its base. Confidence quivers.
But it gets me there fast, it gets me there easy; in fact, it gets me there with no effort at all.
And so I don’t complain.
Gravity escorts the board and myself down and through. Down tree and fallen leaf gauntlet that scores the sky above and around me, through air so sweet you can taste it in the sweat that settles on the furrow of your lip.
Friction subdues fleetingly.
Friction gets its shit together and balance comes easy.
Knees straighten, muscles lax. Stale, collateral breath replaces itself, as azure, jet-scrape sky encompasses.
The feeling is free.
The feeling is of something greater than me, as the chorus in my ear breaks like a wave and I’m swallowed.
It’s a bridge,
made up of the kind of heavy, big-city steel it feels like you never see up close.
The bolts fit the diameter of my fist.
I perch myself like a nirvanic Buddha, closest to its perfect center as I can,
and let my breath express,
examining its shakes and wobbles,
where it catches and snags.
Fishermen lines on the water bed below.
It’s a bridge,
made up of some invincible asbestos that allays my lungs,
settling their nature steady.