Lacrosse

[devilmaycare16]

I started playing because my brother did,

And I gave up gymnastics,

And managed to fell in love.

They put a stick in my hand,

And I abandoned the air for solid land.

Our team was shit,

There were never enough girls for a team come spring

(Even though I never quite was one)

The soccer players on the field over liked to use our space

But there was Sally and Pia and Juliana and Asa.

Juliana had a smile so bright it lit up the sky,

And I remember thinking -

the first time I saw it-

that I wanted to make her smile like that all the time

And it made my stomach flip flop and my heart sing.

( I wasn’t gay, I couldn’t be we weren’t gay.)

We sat on the pier and and waited to be subbed in,

Swapping stories and exchanging smiles.

Together we were unstoppable,

Our line, legendary.

We giggled at the praise, it was just lacrosse.

Pia and I played against girls three times our size and twice our weight,

Thrusting our tiny twelve year old bodies at immovable objects barrelling down the field,

Throwing our legs and arms and torsos to the mercy of some cruel lacrosse god.

Pia always wore her hair in a braid,

And the braid always came out,

She ran down the field, braid halfway undone, hair flying in her face, yellow mouth guard flashing with each gasping breath.

We lay under a bridge on a track strewn field,

Waiting for the game to start.

Sally swore like a sailor and played like a demon,

People cycled in and out, off and on our team,

As we grew older, as the ranking system changed,

As we moved in and out and around the field.

But she was constant, ages and grades in sync,

Our inability to find a new team, a better team.

We were hungry, wanting, yearning, clawing our way up to greatness.

We kicked balls balls back to soccer matches, laughing at their surprised faces.

We didn’t fit the mold of stereotypical lacrosse girls,

Sally was too short, too focused.

I was too black, too violent.

We both wanted too much.

It was easy, the two of us,

We knew each other.

Asa was really, really good.

She came from a lacrosse lineage,

Born with a stick in hand, but she loved it,

But she didn’t want it,

not the way I did.

We were defensemen, always in competition with one another

Sharing stories and tips in shuttle lines,

Bitching about the cold and heat and sweat and equipment.

Asa was a far off distant star to reach to,

Spinning off every time you came close enough to touch her.

I joined varsity this year, for the first time

(I’m only a freshmen y’know.)

There wasn’t really much else to do,

They’d been asking since September.

They needed a goalie…

I was the only one.

I’ve never had friends on the school team,

It wasn’t that they weren’t good people, they mostly were

Taylor just didn’t like me,

And she dictated terms,

So I spent time with the grade above or below.

I was the baby goalie, the mama goalie.

None of them know what they did for me.

Taylor stopped playing in eighth grade,

But it’s hard y’know,

To start talking to the kid you ignored for three years.

Varsity’s really different,

Junior Annika, our captain,

Checks in on me before every game,

And writes pick me up notes for the entire team with her co captain, Sophia.

Junior Libby has to be reminded not to kill me when she shoots,

But she really cares and plays filthy beautiful attack.

Coach Montenegro makes us do endless passing drills,

Coach Grew makes us do endless sprints,

And my weak lungs give out,

But there us nothing left to crawl my way up to,

Nowhere higher to go,

And yet, …. yet,

I still want more.

But the sophomores are kind,

Madison makes sure I’m ok after everyone shoots,

Is willing to walk with me to my bus in the dark,

Kate tells me I didn’t drop the ball,

Even though I did and we all had push ups to do.

Tiny smiles from across the field and gives me thumbs up.

The sophomores are kind and the freshmen don’t want me.

Sophie, who isn’t even on the goddamn team,

screams “go Jamie” every fucking time she sees me step into goal.

They are kind even though no one had ever wanted me.

I love lacrosse,

Or at least, that’s what my friends tell me.

Aunnie says my face lights up and I start speaking faster.

Sophie says my hands start flapping,

Ara says I bounce and rock.

I love lacrosse they say,

But I don’t want to be alone anymore.