Greg Suhr brought me
this pair of socks
which were machine knitted
with uniform precision,
and sporting the color blue.

I slipped my feet into those
warm and wooly socks
as if they served to protect,
but they were violent socks
knitted with threads of cotton and kevlar.

Roaming helpless and hopeless,
disconnected from purpose,
the profile of a wild animal
in the killing grounds where dreams
are crushed and futures stolen,
penned up and trudging a circular path.
A path worn by these socks, these socks
that secure order.

Protected by this magic thread,
my feet are honored in this way,
staggering like the undead.
I want to be undead
but the socks control my feet,
shuffling me along a path made by them.
I am compelled to go where they take me
and the destination is nowhere.

Then my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two unpatriotic villains thirsting for more,
wanting something that doesn’t belong to them,
unworthy of the honor bestowed on them
by those remarkable socks.

At first i resisted the
temptation to take them off.
A mutinous thought, that i could
walk alone without them.
The path to no where is
harder without socks. So,
like a soldier compelled to follow orders
i stretched out my feet
each day and pulled on
the blue socks to continue my journey.

Until one day I sat.
Now barely blue, shot through and through,
The rogue socks came off.
I didn't need them because
I had arrived at nowhere a long time ago.
Now its time for a new destination deserving
of my feet.

The moral of my ode is this:
Don't be honored to wear rogue socks
or afraid to take them off
or accepting of blind patriotism to a garment,
or made to feel small
because you want something better.
Your feet are beautiful without socks and
they know where to take you.