Sole Mates

By Adam Abdelaziz

Greasy, leaky, mud-caked, and rotten,
Sole worn-out by a soul forgotten,
I was saddened, not by my fate, 
but at the state of their hate,
for making a damsel downtrodden.
She cleaned, she cooked, she toiled, never stopping,
They gave her rags while they wore silk and cotton,
But then one day, those rags turned to satin,
I turned to glass, and a pumpkin became a wagon,
Then mice turned to horses, and one of them became a coachman,
We made it to the ball where the Prince asked to dance,
And after one dance, he gave no one else a chance,
One step, two-step, three-step, four,
I shimmered and clicked on the dance floor,
High-heeled and regal, nothing like the sad slipper I was before,
But then the clock struck, and my mistress made haste,
To leave before her finery turned to waste.
In her distress, she left me behind,
But the Prince found me, and an idea came to mind,
He would use me to find,
That damsel, that beauty, that one-of-a-kind,
And so, he set out for the love of his life,
Declaring that whomever I fit would become his wife,
And so, I bore the burden of smelling every girl’s foot in the land,
I was growing nauseous, those pretenders were getting out of hand,
Finally, he came across the house where my mistress was oppressed,
And when the thorny bushes failed the test,
My mistress asked if she could get a chance like the rest.
And so this marked the end of his quest, 
Because when our soles fit perfectly,
The Prince married my mistress, and the rest was a long and happy history.