When You’re the Roller Derby Girls

The roller derby girls are sharp elbows and muscular thighs and tight spandex shorts. Hair in braids and pigtails and cinnamon roll buns, mascara smudged like war paint. The rink and its echoing chants and hoots and hollers. Sweaty socks, toes clenched in their skates, striped knee socks, knee pads and elbow pads, wads of pink bubblegum sugary and sweet in their mouths. The town says they’re going to close the rink, but the roller derby girls don’t let that stop them. They keep skating, wheels skidding, calf muscles burning, teeth bared.