She left her shoes: she  else--her toothbrush, her clothes, and even that stupid little silver vase on the table we kept candy in. Just dumped it out on the table and took the vase. The tiny apartment  we shared seemed different now:her stuff was gone. It wasn't much really, although now the room seemed like a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing incomplete. The closet seemed empty too  most of it was her stuff anyway. But there they were at the bottom, piled up like they usually were ,every single one of them,Why did she leave her shoes?She could have forgotten  them, I  knew too well that she took great pride in her shoe collection, but there they still were, right down to her favorite pair of sandals.They were black with a design etched into the wide band that stretched across the top of them,the soles scuffed and worn,a delicate imprint of where her toes rested was visible in the soft fabric.

It seemed funny to me she walkcd out  of my life without her shoes. Is that irony or am thinking of something else? In a way I was glad they were still here, she would have to come back for them, right?I mean how could she go on with the rest of her life without her shoes? But she's not coming back,I know she isn't. she would rather walk barefoot over glass than have to see me all of her shoes! All of them. every sneaker, boot and sandal, every high heel and clog, every flip-Ilop.What do I do? Do I leave them here or bag them up and throw thorn in the a trash? Do I look at them every morning when I get dressed and wonder by she left them? She knew it" she knows what she"s doing. I can't throw them out for fear she may return for  them today. I can't be rid of myself of her completely with all her shoes still in my life, can't dispose of them or the person that walked in them