Rocket Ship Shoes

Some saw a dirty piece of paper. I saw a story unwritten.

A story of a girl with rocket ships on her feet and her eyes full of deep blue sky. I saw a boy, who gave her rocket fuel, grow like a tree rooted in her soul. I saw the love they shared the days they chased and the cold hard nights they spent in each other’s arms. 

It was the note he passed her behind the teachers back and the poem he wrote that made her laugh and cringe at the same time.

 

The slip he earned when he passed his licence, she was there to celebrate and they drove like maniacs till the tarmac burned bright in those endless summers.

The acceptance letter that meant they could go to the same collage and the diplomas they got when they left.

A page from the book they signed when they made the vows in front of friends and family.

It was the napkin she cried into that day her rockets crashed. The day she found out love was a rusty blade in a dark alley all fucked up on drugs waiting to carve out her man’s heart for seemingly no reason at all.

The paper-work at the mortuary, the bill from the funeral parlour, the positive pregnancy test that would have otherwise made her happy, the court ordered eviction notice.

The photo she showed their daughter of a father who died in a blood red alley.

It was there at the bottom of her bag; the invoice for the plastic ring he bought when he fell on his knees to beg for her hand in the rain, with flowers he stole from the reception of a nearby hotel because she told him she needed more so he became more.

And she cried and crushed it close to her heart till she could no longer hold on because even though he’d been there her whole life and even though no one else could ever love her like that, she had to let go.