New Soles

I smell the savory cardboard box

From across the room..

The corrupt power of marketing 

Sweet, elastic rubber tickles

My senses as I

Placed my hand

Over the popular

Symbol, I can feel the

Jutted outline of the 'swoosh'

I find the smoothed corners

Of the box a soft

Creaking of the lid

The sound of a casket revealing

Wrinkled translucent paper

It was new, pure

No sign of decay appeared

Anywhere, in my first attempt

I pulled back the paper as if

I were revealing an unidentified body

Gritting my teeth, afraid

Of what I would find

Even though I knew

What I purchased the day before

A speck of blue shown

Dark as the skin that had decayed

Appeared through the paper

My fingers itched with

Curosity that killed a cat

I could see the first shoe the

Neon lining calling to me like

A vacant hotel

I buried my foot into

The hole, slipping it in vanishing

Underneath a dark blue cave

I reached for the strings, strangling my

Ankle like a victim as I

Looped them into a crooked bow

It was the perfect crime

Jasmine