Achilles' Heel by Sarah Zhang (15, Philippines)

the leather shoes are sprawled outside
beside the poplars, cypresses,
the yews
shaded in the darkness
with trees looming over
like the grieving widows

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​the sour odor stinking of sweat and rot
and antiseptic
like the diseased smell
of a hospital
and laces woven into a braid
a web that was now frayed
broken
a home long abandoned
by the spider
while the sheen of the shoes
gone now
crevasses settling
in the surface
an invasive species
the victors from the war waged
against pebbles
and miles walked
with the point once curling up
firmly and proud
now flattened
against the grass
and the moss creep
the vines edging up
their throats
the remains
of once sonorous shoes
like the carcass of the antelope
left to the mercy
of the vultures