Wheels (Pt. 1)

It starts with your mother

In the mini-cab

Fighting contractions and

Holding back screams.

Or perhaps your dad is the one driving

You and her to the hospital

Delivering the woman

Who will deliver you

Beginning your becoming

On four wheels.

Fast-forward to age seven.

You've scraped your knee against the pavement

But dad, being stubborn

Picks you up and places you back on the bike

For big kids, you know, the ones with two wheels.

He wants you to balance through life and move forward

When your two feet and his frail arms

Cannot carry you

Any longer.

The piggy-bank lies smashed on the floor

Of your fourteen year old self's room.

Months and months previously you begged

All the adults

To buy that skateboard with the green alien on the deck,

But no one did.

So you saved up.

And finally you can skate towards being more

Accepted by your friends

And maybe get a date for the dance too.

We travel to age nineteen.

You, with hair flowing and clothes dancing

Zoom through dark roads on

The motorbike mum told you not to get.

Because even though you'll

Get into shit for it,

The only time life has a meaning is when it's

On the line.

Zigzagging in and out of cars and the

Yellow stripes on the floor.

But now life slows down. We are at your present.

As though you're constantly stuck at a red light.

Even your feet feel heavier

And your ankles ache.

You begin to push the trolley in your local supermarket

And try to pick out the cheapest groceries.

Just your luck.

The back wheels don't glide against the flooring smoothly;

They twitch in all directions

And you have to push twice as hard just to get to the right isle.

It could be worse, however,

The wheels could fall off and abandon you.

Yet they hold on to their bearings as much as they can

Teaching you

To glide through life, even if you have to wobble

And twitch, and stumble, all the way through.