Lonely Shoes

 There’s a missing pair of shoes by the door and I don’t like it. My shoes feel all cold and lonely on the end, without the company of yours. I took out an extra pair of my shoes, well, your shoes, those shoes you gave me last summer when you decided that they didn’t fit with your Radical Rebranding. Your Radical Rebranding when you decided to cull the last three letters of your name and cut a fringe and get a nose piercing. You know, your red shoes, with tacky soles from carpeted clubs and long forgotten house parties and a flailing left buckle clinging on for dear life. I miss your shoes by the front door. I never know if you’re out or in or up or down. I think of your door, your new door, far away, the heavy duty slab you tried to salvage with posters and postcards, and I wonder. Do you put your shoes next to the door? Or are they strewn across your shoebox of a room, wedged under wardrobes and behind radiators, loaned to friends and left in corridors. Worn with stories you’ll tell me when you come home?