{"id":1624,"date":"2009-03-11T10:11:42","date_gmt":"2009-03-11T10:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1624"},"modified":"2009-03-11T10:11:42","modified_gmt":"2009-03-11T10:11:42","slug":"steph-leal-is-trying-on-some-green-slippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/steph-leal-is-trying-on-some-green-slippers\/","title":{"rendered":"Steph Leal is trying on some green slippers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br \/>Green Slippers <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">We stayed up late at night talking about the Aurora Borealis. Then you mentioned <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">a pair of green slippers you wanted but couldn\u2019t afford to buy, and the next morning, <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">like magic, they showed up in your closet. &nbsp;<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">You couldn\u2019t stop smiling or wearing them: out on late night trips for ice cream, to get the paper in the morning, doing the recycling. They grew old and tattered and faded and filled with holes within months, <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">but you wore them for the next three years until we got that Jack Russell Terrier puppy who demolished the left foot one, and we had to take the puppy to the vet to get his stomach pumped or whatever vets do to retrieve eaten slippers. &nbsp;<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">That vet bill was almost as much as our mortgage payment, but you were so happy <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">the puppy was OK you didn\u2019t mind that we had to cancel our trip to see the Northern Lights due to lack of funds. &nbsp;<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">You kept wearing the right foot slipper with a wool sock on your left foot so you <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">could still keep it warm. I thought it odd, but I loved you so instead of commenting negatively I woke up early <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">and made you cinnamon buns for breakfast. It wasn\u2019t anything too special. I just made the prepackaged kind that you pop onto a baking sheet and heat for thirty minutes <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">and spread with prepackaged icing, <\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">but you loved them and said it was the best breakfast you had eaten in ages and it reminded you of Christmas. They reminded me of Christmas too, but you wrapped me into your arms then, and I got lost in my words,<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">and you said not to worry \u2013 we could see the Aurora Borealis next year and maybe even bring the new pup Slip along, if we could car train him quickly enough.<\/span><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><span style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\">* <\/span><\/font><font style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\" size=\"2\">Stephanie<br \/>\nLeal is a performance poet from the USA. She completed the MA in Creative<br \/>\nWriting at the University of East Anglia in 2007 and currently lives in<br \/>\nNorwich, England, where she is now reading for a PhD in philosophy. She is an active member of the Norwich spoken word scene and has her next show in the city on Sunday 29 March.<\/font><font size=\"2\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><br style=\"font-family: Courier New,Courier,mono;\"><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Green Slippers We stayed up late at night talking about the Aurora Borealis. Then you mentioned a pair of green slippers you wanted but couldn\u2019t afford to buy, and the next morning, like magic, they showed up in your closet. &nbsp;You couldn\u2019t stop smiling or wearing them: out on late night trips for ice cream, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}