Mellissa Offoha

 

Give me your shoes

 

Give me your shoes and you take mine and where them for one day.

But one condition, until the day is out, you can’t take them off and runaway.

Come, take a walk down lonely lane and witness my solitude and pain.

Come, where your favorite shirt to school today and watch them make fun of it in vain.

Oops, you scored a hundred on the paper, project, quiz or test.

Sh, listen closely as they whisper hatred towards you because you did the best.

Look, see them staring at you as you slowly trod to lunch.

Look, all eyes seem always on you, what a feeling, what a hunch.

Now feel the slanders and the ridicule thrown at you.  Wait, your supposed friends are gone!

No stop, retie those shoes, is it that hard to keep them on?

Go on, pretend to laugh it off all though it hurts to smile.

Go on, endure the gossip you hear of yourself, so clear, so wretched, so vile.

Hey, see them, they’re calling you to come and join their clique, how anxious you seem to be.

What, you go right ahead and help them tease someone that they pick on just because they see?

Hold it, you’re fitting and are laughing along as you all deride someone else.

Hold on, why are you secretly sneaking away, it reminds you too much of your self?

So you see that the one who is ridiculed is the one that is not normal indeed.

But look around you!  Everyone’s different and there’s no such thing as normality.

And though other people’s words cause you tears and aches and hurts and pain.

You have the nerve and audacity to turn around and do the same.

And even if every single person in the room is laughing at you right in your face.

Nobody stops and thinks to spare your feelings with any haste.

And nobody bares and nobody cares and nobody dares to help.

As long as they’ve been excepted they don’t need to help someone else.

And even if they know the things they say are hurting you,

As long as somebody else is laughing they will recklessly continue.

And if there’s ever a class discussion on how stop hierarchy, the same people contribute.

Then they turn right around the very same class period and heedlessly make fun of you.

On top of all this, there’s competition inevitably leading to criticism.

Which leads to witticism, which is defamation creating cynicism.

And you find yourself in tears in the hallway all alone skipping class.

You don’t even care anymore whether you fail or whether you pass.

The aching sounds of your name float around in every rumor.

Your headache grows wild like a pounding malignant tumor.

You can take it no more!  Who called you that!  You’re finally so outraged you run to see.

You stare across the hall and you spot someone wearing your shoes, and you realize that it’s me.

You can give me back my shoes now.