Seeking Podiatry

I've been walking loosely.

I've been walking barefoot because someone stole my shoes.

I've been walking on shards of I and Thou, on promises un-kept, on people's otherness, on my un-self. I've been walking on coals of false consideration, on 'wait for them to figure things out'. I've been walking on the gravel of other people's terms forgetting that Achilles died here.

We get lost in loss. We question ethics and friendship. We remove ourselves from the complicated and resign to the empty. Locking eyes and crossing boundaries breeds fair-weather friends. I didn't know that. I'm learning.

I'm watching the leaves fall in the rain and wonder at how I let the summer in when I knew I'd fall prey to the fleeting.