Colored Shoes

I was once a guy who loved bright color shoes. Give me the lime greens, and the cherry reds and the hot pinks.

I'd wear them outside, I'd wear them to sleep, I'd wear them to play sports and even in my dreams.

I loved my colored shoes because they represented me. If I had sun-struck yellow shoes on you could tell I was happy. If I had on a dark blue pair of shoes, maybe I was feeling emotional. Every pair had a story to tell and a path to take you on.They were my diary, my way of saying what I didn't know how to say outloud.

Though one day the yelling in the house and the constant pressure becomes too much, and my lime greens turn into a tired rain soaked grey. Then I get called silly, and my cherry reds turn into a midnight black.

Then I grow older and the bright colored shoes don't come as often, instead a bruised twilight purple takes its place.

I got a job and I don't feel the same excitement about my colored shoes anymore. I instead slip into a hollow winter grey pair of shoes.

That night I realized while sitting down that maybe the color never comes back, maybe this is just how adults are. Maybe my shoes are bound to be trapped in my closet just a memory of the duo we used to be.

But then I meet a girl

Not the kind who bursts into your life with fireworks or loud declarations. She arrives quietly, the way morning light slips through a window you forgot to close. She doesn’t comment on my hollow winter grey shoes, doesn’t ask why the colors are gone. She just notices me — really notices me — in a way I haven’t felt in years.

She laughs at my jokes, even the bad ones. She listens when I talk, even when I don’t say much. And slowly, without meaning to, I start to wonder if maybe — just maybe — there’s a color I haven’t worn yet. Something softer. Something hopeful.

Something like her.

She can't bring back the colors that used to live inside me, but she creates a new one. A shade I never knew I needed. One that reminds me my life doesn’t have to stay trapped in rainy greys and midnight blacks.

All I need is her amber‑red warmth to fill the spaces I thought were gone forever.

Later that night, I opened the closet for the first time in years. The old pairs sit there in the dark, quiet and patient, like they’ve been waiting for me to remember them. And somehow, they look different now. The tired greys don’t feel so heavy, the bruised purples don’t feel so lonely. It’s like her amber‑red warmth spills into the shadows, brushing against every forgotten color until they start to glow again — not as bright as before, but alive enough to make me believe I could wear them someday.