Boko Maru

by Cheap Bastard

“Ste-step, ste-squelch, ste-step, set-squelch, etc., etc.” — My Shoes

I don’t skate but I wear Vans anyways. They are destroying my feet with comfort, but I don’t mind my pigeon foot walk I have, degrading my foot arch to a flat rotting plank. I guess it’s only fair it ruins my feet, as I tend to ruin them.

I’ve had the pair I wear today for a year and a half, but I wear them all season ‘round on street terrain. In the fall a hole appeared, and I sewed it shut.

They squelch nowadays. The rubber on the starboard of the right shoe will squeak, squelch, and squawk when wet and walking. A buddy of mine called me a “cheap bastard” but I remind him I do have another pair. My sentimentalism prevents me from using them.

You can see the soul of the shoe before your sole is cradled by the shape of its body. It walks you through things. They have been with me on in crisis and bedlam. They have crossed terrible and amazing boundaries. Angelic, holy and damned.

If you see a dead man’s shoes, you’ll see it too. Placed neatly despite being worn with a life span that surpasses its host and both lays prim and idle on the ground,

One above; one below.

The biography of a man in scuffs and wear.

So, I keep my old shoes when I can no longer walk in them and hang up the holey vessels and see the lives I once lived, the pains, the joys. I look at my shoes under me and say thanks. They squeak back to me as I walk away, them and I.