Goodbye metamorphosis
Farewell tender, gracious form

You showed up for long enough
To catch our longing eyes

Then you left us
With a storm that would unleash a thousand goodbyes

So long to coffee and cheese
To ‘just a water for me, please’
‘And no, I don’t want another glass,
In fact, please just don’t fucking ask’

Sweet dreams to appointments
Booked with spotless hope
To scans that signal our gratitude
For the times we couldn’t cope

Adios to gnawing at the seasons, the decades
The breaths that didn’t end
To the aimless minutes
Just a pink line could mend

Goodbye to the freedoms
We so willingly forwent
To the sleep, the waistline
To the booze and the drugs we now happily repent

I’m signing off a future
In which I can be seen
In which crimson carpets unroll for me

So long to your palace of paid leave
To a house that squeals, ‘A ha!’ because they finally get me

Farewell to your faces
Who gestured we’d be okay
Because the system, the structures, the cycles –
Tell us, ‘Darling, this is the only way’

Goodbye unsullied undies
Bought one size too large
Farewell to the Christmases
That were no longer so damn hard

The designs are gone from where we now are
Tossed with the pricey seat you bought for our car

Instead, we return

To the apps, to the months, and the tests
To pretending I give an iota about the rest
In the meetings where I’m at my best

I’ll only be willing
That our scar
might metamorphose into a rainbow