Just a Girl with a Love for Steel

By Linda Kowalchek (Founding Connoisseur)

Image by MART PRODUCTION.

When I was a little girl
I played with you in the sand.
Your tiny match box body
Zipping around, wheels spinning as I pushed you in a crooked circle.

You took me places
Only my imagination could understand.
Private thoughts of driving away
Through the hills to a vacation that never was.

Years before that I scooted around
Perched on your faded pink plastic,
With your broken horn and steering wheel
Cracked in half from baking in the sun.

Using my short legs to take us
Away from where we were,
Getting lost in our own world
With our secrets, hopes, and thoughts.

You were my companion
And my transportation away from the noise,
Off into the peace and quiet
Where only I existed in silence.

Fifty years later, I climb inside you.
Your body has been poked and prodded by the hands of many strangers.
They shaped you into a mass of metal
And they labeled you a servant.

To many you are simply a utilitarian tin box.
To me you are a vessel to freedom,
Carrying me away to refuge
Far from the absence of possibilities.

In my eyes you are beautiful,
Not just for how you look but for what you do.
A willing participant and transformer of all that is wrong,
Transporting me to a place and time of hope and tranquility.

With you I am at peace
And the world is quiet.
I am alone in my mind
As you whisk me away to my dreams.

© Linda Kowalchek 2025