A Little Narrative...

I'm thinking about working on this a bit more to create a narrative poem in blank verse, but eh, here's my "scrap." 

When did you fall from grace?

I remember it was summertime; the last of the wildflower blooms still clung to the trees and the air was already dry with the onslaught of heat. I was skating down the streets, slicing into the pavement with my rollerblades, hot breeze on my oily skin and the taste of watermelon on my lips. My mind must have been in the clouds as it always was, daydreaming about, surely, some boy who knew how to play guitar, throw a football, or drive a pickup.

I heard a whistle from behind, then a voice call, “Hey, pretty girl, where you going so fast?”

                                                                                                                         

When you hear someone say “pretty girl,” you’re not supposed to turn around, but I thought I was hot shit and knew they were talking to me. I looked over my shoulder and slowed.

Three young men walked behind me, one wore a goofy smile, another a wife beater, the third, I can’t even remember. He probably had a creepy mustache. “Hey, pretty girl, how old are you?” his words like fingertips testing the ripeness of a peach.

I sneered. I turned my back, raised a fist up to the sky, and outstretched my middle finger.

I thought they’d burst into laughter, but instead, all I heard was a mockingbird’s coo. I glided across the pavement, heart pounding beneath my sports bra, smile cutting into my face.

As I turned a sharp corner, I lost my balance and felt my knees scrap against the road. My body thumped to the ground. The first thing I remember doing was glancing back, relieved to see, I think, that the men hadn’t witnessed my fall from grace. I didn’t want a hand to help me up.

I like to think that if Eve were a gringa in South Texas, her story would be like mine; that she would decide when to pluck a pomegranate from the tree, when to sink her teeth into the flesh of a Rio Red toronja.