GOODBYE, DOUBLE-AGENT FRIEND

GOODBYE, DOUBLE-AGENT FRIEND

You arrived smiling,
wearing two faces:
one turned toward me,
cold and bright,
one slipped away
as night became dawn.

Sometimes amber,
sometimes clouded,
sometimes clear,
sometimes glowing
like a promise.

And sometimes,
like a season
changing overnight,
you turned
a rich golden-brown.

I met you
before I knew better.
I kept you
when I was up,
when I was down.
I called you loyalty.
I called you relief.

You knew the passwords
to my head and heart,
the few truths
I kept locked inside,
and you spent them
on one more night,
one more round.

But your time is up.

This won’t be gentle.
This won’t be clean.

This is a bone breaking.
Raw, audible, undeniable.

It feels like pulling roots
from inside my own body.
They resist.
They hold.
And when they tear loose,
they make noise,
the sound
of every intimate moment
splintering into truth.

I’m not pretending
this won’t hurt.
It will ache in the quiet.
It will call me
in a familiar voice.

You didn’t hold me.
You held me back.

My fingerprints are everywhere,
on every glass,
every excuse,
every night
I tried to disappear.

I will still see you
in glossy rooms,
in raised glasses,
in the hands of strangers
who haven’t learned your cost.
I might even nod,
a quiet recognition.

But I won’t return
for a quick kiss
or for the private language
we once shared.

I am leaving,
even if my hands shake,
even if part of me
still remembers you as comfort.

Goodbye,
old double-agent friend,
not because it is easy,
but because it is necessary.