I find freedom on a bike.
While climbing up the hill,
or screaming down it,
chained to gravity, I feel liberated
like a raindrop being pulled down to earth,
yet swaying to its own drumbeat.
On a bike,
I am a blank whiteboard
being scribbled
with blue and red and orange and green.
On a bike,
I ride through kaleidoscopic roads,
Roads that with every turn
reveal faces and terrain
rich with life, pregnant with enthusiasm.
Roads
that snake around houses
where people live with suntanned smiles,
near saw-toothed shorelines
where fishermen,
their backs curved like horseshoes,
untangle their catch.
Roads on which schoolchildren stop to wave,
sometimes even barrage me with questions,
and not care about my answers.
On a bike,
I can hear the wind whistle through my hair
as if it’s trying to shave my head.
On a bike,
I see a village’s heart twist open around a bend.
I see cities open up their petals in streets,
cities purging their clogged roads of vehicles,
flinging them onto the highway.
All this while a thin cooling stream of sweat trickles down my back.
On a bike,
I am still, I am alive.
Today’s prompt: Write a poem including the phrases ‘The whiteboard was blank’ and ‘shaving my head’.
100 Days of Happy Poems, Poem 9
Grains of thought 