Change Shoes

Change Shoes 
 
I remember the morning  
I stepped in your shit 
That  distinct 
grotesque, eerily  
familiar feeling. 
 
I spent the next hour kicking,  
scraping your putrid fragments from my shoe 
Every crevice invaded 
Deep inside each nook,  
a tiny morsel of youstuck. 
 
I spent the hour next running  
water, splashing soap  
on the bottom of my soul 
 
Still your stench followed me 
Like a red balloon  
tethered—to my ankle 
Reminding me of It 
a spectrehaunting 
 
For  
hoursmonths 
    days years 
I thought  
the problem was me 
 
Was it— 
       something on my lip? 
       my clothes?  
       my hair? 
       my very being? 
 
This skin, I scrubbed  
Exfoliating, exorcising every essence exposing  
Bare broken bones  
Raw sinew with nothing left  
 
Until I realized— 
 
All I had to do 
Was change my shoe