Stone Soup

Where young artists paint the world with words

The international magazine of stories, poems, and art by young writers and artists. Published continuously since 1973.

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Roller Skating

The wheels
Crunch over the pea gravel
As sweat
Crowds my tomato-red face.
My legs are constantly moving
Pumping with pure
Adrenaline.
A puddle
Crammed with mud
Stretches over the cement sidewalk.
Consumed with laughter
And joy
I am too delirious
To see the hazard.
My body
Is shot into the air
And my arms
Flail
Like a baby pigeon
Flying for the first time.
My legs are
Spattered
With grime.
My aerial adventure
Concludes
With a tragic
Crash.
Water
Spurts out
From under my
Bruised body.
Drops pitter-patter as they
Connect with land.
I sit there
Soaked
Absorbed with how I look
What pity watchers must feel.
But I am chortling
Elated
Even if briefly
And even if disastrously ended.
I had
Done it.
I had roller skated.

Roller Skating Nicky Cannon
Nicky Cannon, 12
Dallas, Texas