My brother and I used to got to the
park together to be free. We needed to escape the dissatisfaction,
the dysfunction, and the misery our father burdened us with. We
would grab our Razor scooters and a basketball after being asked a
thousand time why we aren't star athletes and just go.
The swings were our happy place.
Bowne Park was quiet and we could talk, or we wouldn't talk, and it
would be just as nice. It stopped being so nice though. As we got
older, I'd be on the swings and he'd skate around me. Later I would
take my scooter and swing along. My brother stopped wanting to come.
He wanted to play video games. He won't even come out for family
dinner.
So I stopped with the swings, because
other children would see me and stare blankly as if I shouldn't be
there. I went down to the artificial pond and sat under my favorite
willow tree. I loved that willow tree. It reminded me of
Pocahontas, and though the story was wildly inaccurate, she was my
favorite Disney princess. She was beautiful, colored, and she stood
for something more. I took my notebook, my iPod, and my gum. I
would try to forget and write fantasies where I'd be saved.
I thought eventually I was saved. I
started bringing my boyfriend when I was fifteen or sixteen. I
brought Matt to my special spot because I wanted to share it with
him. We talked for hours there and we didn't have to do anything
more. Superheroes were sort of our thing, and I claimed it was
appropriate because he saved me.
I should have known better. I wanted
to be Pocahontas, not Snow White. I could never return to Bowne Park
after he left me for a pretty Caucasian girl who was neither smart or
cool. She was plain and ordinary.
Pocahontas would have been strong
enough to return to the park; at least the Disney version of her
would be. But that's not who she really was. She was a teenager
whose livelihood was traded like property. Mine was so damaged it
was abandoned like a pair of shoes.
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