Jealous of Skateboarders
written by: Claire Farnsworth
I am jealous of skateboarders.
The way they are so in tune
with their bodies, with pavement—
wheels going bum bum bum
over cracks in the sidewalk.
They are a forgotten offshoot
of that magic we call athleticism.
But there is no medal,
no finish line
for the skateboarder who lives,
breathes his difference.
“Poser, Ha! You can’t even do a kickflip.”
It’s an ever-evolving cycle.
Posers get good,
more posers come,
and the ones who own up to ignorance
are the champions of the game.
Skateboarders are cool.
That word seems so removed,
so cold,
so foreign and not of.
Skateboarders are cool because they bleed and bleed again,
go home with torn elbows
and a bit more ground gained in the battle waged
between themselves,
the pavement,
and impossible flight.
They risk pain,
they know it will come,
and they do it for the sandpapery grip tape
beneath Converse kicks,
for adrenaline,
for otherness.
There must be some extra magic there.
What lonely camaraderie.
Skateboarders know themselves,
they are lost.
Lost from society,
the rushing, seething mass
of bright, bright cold—
subways,
train tracks pushing onwards,
glittering steel.
They are dirty,
bitten by stone,
going onward with no end in sight,
but getting better, better, better.
No championship to fight toward.
Only the battle with themselves,
under a silent overpass
left graffitied by forgotten hands.
The teen kid with the bleached buzzcut,
jersey swallowing him whole,
jogging up the cracked stone steps,
board under one arm.
The camera panned—
he went past me.
He had somewhere to go.
He was alone among the flowers,
the skatepark next-door to the park.
What string led him onward?
What glory he was seeking.
Alone in the skatepark—
falling, bleeding, bruising.
Getting up again, torn shirt.
Broken pavement, falling.
Rattle and sway,
high tops beating the ground.
Halfpipe.
Branches across
the watchglass blue sky.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This poem culminated through many things. The skater boy I saw, the purchase of a pair of Converse that upon researching, I realized was designed for skateboarding. A YouTube video of skate clips and injuries. The time I stood on our neighbor boy’s board at the age of nine, and felt like I was going to fall off a cliff.
- Jealous of Skateboarders - November 23, 2025
