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Abraheem Dittu: “The Foothills”

By Abraheem Dittu on October 3, 2018 in POPULAR

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There’s something viscerally nostalgic about late summer in the foothills. Purple mountains that turn deep scarlet in the late afternoon. I remember hell week, looking through the labyrinthine criss cross of my facemask, up at the mountains, feeling a sense of reverie, sweat burning my eyes, tasting the dirty salt on my tongue. I feel the same sense of dream I did ten years ago when I look up at them, the same sense of star bound wonder.

I took that dream with me to the valley. I let it ferment and fester, at any moment, I felt like I would burst into flames. I ran like a gazelle on scorched earth. Glory was intoxicating but even back then I remember feeling fragile. I sensed something was off, I didn’t feel the stoic wonder of the foothills, and I feared I never would. I flung myself violently into chaos, down after down. I was exploited until the ligaments of my shoulder were hanging by a string. By the end of the season I was damaged goods and a pariah.

I don’t miss the subordination, the old men chasing a deluded dream. I don’t really miss anything about it at all. I’ve seen too many grown men cry, it’s frankly pathetic. I often wondered how I got caught up in the ruse. Perhaps it was my older brothers, I had “big shoes to fill”. I had something to prove and hadn’t figured out why. I hadn’t figured out why I felt so uncomfortable and out of place even when I was a proverbial “star”.

When I look at the mountains now, I rarely think of football. All of it seems so ephemeral and embarrassing. Why was I so upset about it for so long? The injuries ruptured my sense of identity, which was already precarious. Men who I trusted manipulated and abandoned me when they could no longer solicit my services. I became disillusioned with everything. But when I look at the foothills now, I still feel hope, that one day I can be like them, majestic among men.

(Header image by Flckr user Don Graham)

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Tagsabraheem dittutomorrow's voices todayyoung writer

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About the author

Abraheem Dittu

Abraheem Dittu

Abraheem Dittu is a Pakistani-American writer and poet from Los Angeles. He's previously been published in Cultural Weekly, Flypaper Magazine, The Blue Door Quarterly, The Squawk Back, The Song of the San Joaquin, Inscape Magazine, Ascent Aspirations, The Free Library of the Internet Void, The Pointed Circle, Five 2 One Magazine, Bluepepper, Rigorous Magazine, Holy Shit Journal, and The Oxford Summer Academy Review.

  • Matt Nemetz

    I think everyone can learn something from this piece. Very well written, Abe. Hope you have been well, my friend. Thank you for sharing this.

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