Like a Pebble in my Shoe

Sometimes she walked with a limp

Sometimes she simply hopped

There were days, weeks, years,

She was kind of embarrassed

And it all felt too much, she needed to hide

So she stayed home alone, like a shy deer

Wounded, gone to ground

The Covid lockdown was like a liberation

Because suddenly everyone else was in the same position

Sometimes she went out in the dark,

No makeup, nails uncut, her hair a mess

In the woods, where no-one could see her,

(Did I mention she was dangerously fearless)

She’d do a flip and walk on her hands

A small knife concealed in her pants

And did you know in aikido, she could do knee walking?

Often she became amphibian,

She just left land, crawled across broken glass, pebbles, sand,

And in the glory of feeling weightless,

Swam

On land there was something perpetually

Perplexing her,

Like a pebble in her shoe

Was it stuck with a supernatural glue?

It had been there for as long

As she could remember

Like the sorceror’s apprentice

It magically multiplied

And when removed, reappeared

It was the source of a constant pain

Sometimes she felt like a female Jesus

She was nailed to a cross

Except hers was invisible

No-one else could see the ghost pebble

Not even the surgeon she paid

To make it go away

She also said prayers, begged priests

Then almost with her last breath,

She at last made her peace

The mysterious pebble,

Like the DNA of her scapegoating family

Was there to

Stay.

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