Walk a Mile in These Shoes

Your days began bright, yellow, and haloed. Yes, the winters had begun to be hard. Too many gray days, the cold whipping through the threads of your coat, your dogs ageing. But you had your music, danced around to Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga, sang to Justin Timberlake. Even if age was catching up with you, you weren’t catching up with age.

When she took the pills, succumbed, you felt judgment rise. How could she when she had so much, so many things you didn’t have? Children, a family who care about her, a boyfriend who was there for her? How could she?

Three years later, you understand. An avalanche of night dreams dictates a day of surface tears. Even with life burgeoning around you, you center on the darkness, on the worst aspects of everything because you can’t see anything else. The dogs wag their tails, implore your participation, which you give, half-heartedly because you feel as if your insides are dying, as if you’re dying, and you don’t understand why. What was that dream in the night that has awakened this depression? Does it matter?

As the clock hand moves beyond midnight, you understand her now, you understand the obliteration of future. You understand that those who judge have never, ever been standing here in this echoing dark chasm. They live in the light. You lived in the light, until you didn’t.

If you can get to the next day, a good night’s sleep, gold bursting on the horizon, maybe everything will be alright. And the thing you will say to others is that perhaps they could judge a little less and try to understand a bit more, because you wish you had, especially now that you’ve walked in those heavy shoes.

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