Why Doesn’t Someone Pay Attention to Our Needs for Attention? 

In the supermarket, on the town,
everyday getting around we see

the connected lace of pain—wide strides,
uneven steps, hitches in hips, lots of limps.

In case you give a damn here’s an FYI—
we communicate with others, so softly you can’t hear,

but to you we scream despair about the unfair
conditions you force us to live and work in.

Oh. just so you know while we walk we talk.
Seven out of ten pairs asked say their life is agony.

Hell carrying the weight with little to no support.
The quality of our existence is akin to life in prison.

Even the sketchiest pedal coverings—flimsy,
feeble arches or none, like socks, not snug enough,

plastic may be fantastic, but more toxic than healthy
and the crocs—who came up with these money-maker-foot-breakers?

And then there’s the ones who bind and confine toes
and soles for aesthetics, or acts like balancing on tippy-tips.

Activities if done naked couldn’t be done
or wouldn’t cause deformities. We are not laughing.

Our fluid community knows no race or gender
we know only the offenders, you the blobs on top

who succumb to apathy when it comes to our well-beings
and of course, we damn others sources—

shoe manufacturers’ greed and NIH’s capitalistic ties.
If they gave a damn about this situation

they’d turn upside-down this lawless shoe nation—
make it illegal to treat feet like this country treats meat.