I have a complicated relationship with my toes. I seldom look at them because of the feelings they provoke, and I am happy they stay hidden away in the enclosure of my wide sized shoes. Nothing perverted, my toes make me emotionally distraught.
At the age of 6, my toes were victim to a heavy drawer of a chest that covered the length of our living room. A few hours after, they were blue, and then a sickly green, and soon black. Eventually, they plucked off to make way for a new set. My toes taught me about the cycle of transformation, that there was destruction, there was pain, a range of colours (emotions) and the lack of, and then there was recovery and rebirth.
At the age of 8, curiosity killed the cat (of innocence) when I found a folder of toe(s) pictures on our family desktop. I learned about who meticulously curated the collection as they caressed the cold computer screen on a sunny afternoon.
At 10, my toes served as a reminder of the growth spurt that I embarked on. My shoe size placed a few notches above other girls my age, and affirmed my mothers' fear that her daughter might not grow into a feminine, gracious woman (spoiler alert).
12 years in, my feet began to spread wide, and shape grotesquely, eliminating open toe sandals and heels from my sight at shoe stores. I tossed my femininity in the stock room, hiding behind men’s sport shoes and trendy trainers.
When I was 14, I met my divorced and once abusive father. I panned my eyes to his open toe buckled sandals in the auto ride back home, and saw the same grotesquely shaped feet stare back at me. It was genetic and there was no escaping who I got it from.
When I was 16, my toes met their enemy, in grown nails, from kicking around a soccer ball in ill fitted cleats. My feet further became a sight to squirm at, and I showered them with anti-fungal powder every night at my all girls boarding school as a quick fix to a growing problem.
When I was 18, my toes carried me across the aisle of a flight that flew to another continent. Enveloped in the depression that came with little to no sunlight, my body gained fifty pounds more than it could carry. Just like that, my feet stopped touching the ground. Rolling around in bed, further excused by a global pandemic, my toes temporarily unlearned their function to move.
When I was 22, my toes stubbed against the chest of drawers in the six person apartment I was renting a room in. I stared at the slightly blue hallux, and winced at the reminder of the heavy drawer when I was 8. In that moment, flashed an array of moments that my toes carried, that shaped my becoming. There was no escaping any of it, any of who I was or who I would become. They cornered my gaze quietly, tucked away in the enclosure of my wide-sized tennis shoes.