From caribou, sheep,
and seal skin linings,
to modern leather,
and endless refining.

Boots have come
so far in a hurry-
once thin and essential,
now stylish and furry.

From Doc Martins moving
on mosh pit floors,
to fireman's boots,
and kicking down doors.

Buckles and laces
and straps and steel toes.
Patterned, simple,
they fit with your clothes.

Each boot has a story,
a personality too.
They help you dress up,
and with the things that you do.

We all have our favourites,
our boots we don daily,
The boots that add to
our own story, maybe.

For me, it's my gumboots,
you may ask yourself, why?
Simple: they keep
my blue jeans dry.

Look at my life,
In perfect curation.
Crawl through my photos,
For an endless duration;
My travels, my boyfriend,
My little black dress,
With each "like" you give me,
You'll like yourself less.
I'm pretty, I'm smart,
And outdoorsy to boot.
I proved I like hiking,
With a mountain top shoot.
I made it look easy,
My cheeks weren't flushed,
My re-application at the
Top wasn't rushed.
It's not about hiking,
But getting that shot,
To prove to the world,
That I'm trendy and hot.
My phone and it's filter,
Are all that I need,
Plus endless selfies,
And for you to believe.
One of one hundred,
Good angle and light.
Touched up and ready,
To upload tonight.
Of course it was worth it,
That trip to the top.
If I don't stay active,
My numbers will drop.
Please like me, share me,
keep me in rotation.
Please look at my life,
in perfect curation.

I'm leaning back in my chair again.
Divided stability.
Courage and fear spit at each other.
Equal opportunity,
Yet courage always forfeits.

My empty gut plunges,
and I'm forgetting how to fall.
How am I here again?
So careful not to lean back;
I can't afford to.

I'm so fragile.
Forced to move.
Unstable, unsure, unbalanced.
I'm behind myself;
A defunct marionette.
All overwhelming,
All this everything,
Sewn tightly with panic.
Silence is louder than sound,
But not louder than this hammer in my chest.
Please loosen up,
So I can breath again.
Expired oxygen.

If I wasn't so stubborn,
I'd be gone by now.
If I didn't fight,
Against my body's violent scheme.
If I didn't hunt for safety,
From the bottom of this pit.

I clamber out each time,
Wearing the trauma like a growth.
In the way that I move,
The fear.
In the way that I speak,
The fear.
The fear of leaning back in my chair again.

Sodden ceiling, corrugated,
a berth that wanes and shivers.
Forced between compounded cubes,
inhabited by givers.

Glitchy limbs of ash on puddle;
inverted self-reflection.
Paper walls, weak from
blotted acid rain ingestion.

Tattered cloth and matching veins,
pupils full and vacant.
A nauseating gulp of tar;
reaction with the pavement.

Every morning, overwhelming
waves of sober sickness.
Sixteen weeks is past the point
to turn around and quit this.

Another man, another bump.
Irreversible.
Another baby growing tough.
Inconceivable.

Tepid womb and nine months soak
can wreck a little one.
That's why they always took them
and left her to mother none.

Breaking water, babbling,
a window darkly stained.
Two nurses, prompt and tidy,
searching out a vein.

A mangled city sky scrapes
against the cubes of givers.
A doctor breathes a solaced sigh;
a baby is delivered.