The Grove

I grew up between two worlds—

one of cracked sidewalks and sirens,

where streetlights hummed over pavement nights,

where I learned to move quick, keep sharp, stay small.

Where doors stayed locked,

where fireworks and gunshots sounded the same,

where the air felt tight, like it might swallow you whole.

Back then, I was the only poor white kid on the block,

surrounded by people of color who took me in like family,

who taught me how to move, how to survive,

how to laugh even when the weight was heavy.

I knew struggle wasn’t just mine.

We all carried it,

but some carried more.

Then, suddenly—The Grove.

A left turn, a dirt road, a different life.

Where trees stood taller than buildings,

where houses sat far enough apart to let you breathe,

where the only thing loud at night

was the wind through the pines and the crickets at play.

Here, the kids looked like me—

same pale skin, same worn-out sneakers, same empty pockets—

but they carried a different kind of weight.

They saw their struggle and thought it was the only one.

“If I’m poor too, how is racism real?” they’d say,

angry at people they’d never lived beside.

They couldn’t see their own privilege,

having this place, this space,

a left turn into peace that most never get.

We rode our BMX bikes until the tires begged for mercy,

left dust clouds trailing like ghosts of the past.

Manhunt at dusk, wiffle ball in the heat,

our voices stretching through the woods,

laughter breaking like waves over pine and gravel.

Winters meant shovel hustles,

pockets full of crumpled bills and frozen fingers,

building ramps from packed snow,

learning to fly and fall in the same breath.

First kiss under the cover of trees,

first high met with the wrong kind of discovery,

first ER visit courtesy of a jump

that promised more than it could give.

It wasn’t the deep woods of Maine,

or the wild edges of Northern California,

but it was enough.

Enough to breathe,

enough to shake loose the weight

of the life I had known before.

Most kids like me never get that.

Most kids don’t get a left turn into something softer,

a dirt road to remind them they belong outside too.

That’s why I built Ava—

for the ones still stuck between two worlds,

for the kids who deserve their own Grove,

their own air to breathe.