Shoe

I am a shoe. The only shoe that the old man owns. He wears me everywhere, and I’m forced to smell the fungus on his feet every day from dawn to evening. I feel the weight of his body as he slams me onto the gum-embedded sidewalk with the heavy tread of his stride. When we are home, I’m shoved into a dim closet with moth bitten clothes and dusty books. Grime and soot have collected on my previously pristine surface, turning my white leather to gray. In the summer my face blisters from the heat and the hot concrete burns holes in my soles. In the rain I’m practically waterboarded, drowning with each step. I hate being a shoe.