Patched Shoes
A poem
Little plastic shoes,
step by step,
you walked until you finally broke.
For a few years,
you were the one who took me here and there,
but no memories I found of you
made me want to keep you.
Tonight you appear
outside my bedroom door,
seemingly to be
waiting just for me.
Strings of purple yarn and
a trying smile you give to me,
tied where you once ripped apart.
I puzzled at who gave you a fresh new start.
I stared and I stared,
and suddenly I knew.
Of course, of course,
it had to him too.
You were just broken, but not beyond repair.
With strings and a patient hand,
your life was fortunately spared.
You’d fumble as you walk,
but the purple now runs through you.
If it breaks,
you’ll wait till he finds you,
and maybe this time
it’ll be yarn that’s pink,
or white,
or blue
to bind you again,
and again,
and again.
You join the ranks of other –
old wires held together with tape,
shirts with mended holes,
and closets of broken doors.
You were our trash but his new prize possession,
the unworthy but still worthy.
To him,
you could walk until only pieces of you remain.
To him,
new or old, you were all just the same.
