Summer sunshine blazed the school lot like bright stadium lights giving our grayish fields tans,
Converting this concrete complex of a field into our own gridiron.
Shrieks of “I’m open, I’m open” are screamed furiously through the sore tonsils of young boys,
As we hear the quick and hard steps of sneakers running through garbage rubble.
My ears take notice of the silent “choo-choo” of a freight train on track directed at me.
But my eyes do not,
Because they are searching for the thrown ball which will relieve my nose of the entrapping stench of defeat,
Allowing me to embrace the thickened air of sweat, making tired boys smell like dogs too wet
But the sweet scent of success never enters my nostrils as the track ends,
And the “choo-choo” turns into a grand “Ka-Bamm!” on which I am the bam.
His thick knee hits mine, his broad shoulder hits my mouth,
The back of my head lands harshly on the concrete as my elbows fail to delay the fall.
I open my eyes five seconds later and my lips taste like rotten water but I know it’s blood,
I feel handicapped because my kneecap is battered and my head seems to have a drill rammed into its back,
I realize the laws of physics are acts of injustice because I am the one convicted.
