‘Bitter Sole’

Left shoe here.  Once, Right Shoe and I belonged to you, Sophie.  For over a year, all three of us clumsily ‘danced’ through Zumba classes at the leisure centre, huffed and puffed through parks, pounded pavements, dodged dog poo, human spit and vomit.  We were there with you for the 6am runs before work.  The getting-back-into-shape runs after you had been dumped yet again.

Then you started to use us less and less when it was becoming too much of a bother to reach your target weight only to go back to your dreaded weight after over-indulging yet again at the weekends.

Now, I lie discarded on the side of the street next to things I used to hate stepping in.  My laces are tangled in shame, my sole worn thin from carrying your fat backside for months and I dread yet another dog stopping by, sniffing and then cocking a leg to do its business on my head.

The worst bit was you separating me from Right Shoe.  It bugs me that I don’t know his fate.  If I ever find out that he had a more glamorous burial at the shoe bank or even in your bin, I swear, I would kill myself.  

Dean Arutoghor ©