Goodbye,
double-agent friend.
Sometimes amber,
sometimes clear,
sometimes clouded,
sometimes glowing
like a promise
I wanted to believe.
I’ve seen you in every shade,
in celebration, in collapse,
in quiet corners
where no one asked questions.
I met you
when I didn’t know better.
when I was young and blind
I kept you
when I was up or down.
I called you loyalty.
I called you relief.
But the time is up.
This won’t be gentle.
This won’t be clean.
This is a bone break.
Raw, audible, undeniable.
A fracture through habit,
through memory,
through everything
I built around you.
It feels like pulling roots
from inside my own body,
deep, tangled,
wrapped around
who I thought I was.
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.
It will ache in the quiet.
It will call me
in a familiar voice.
But I know now:
you didn’t hold me.
You held me back.
Reality slips,
and I let you rewrite it.
My fingerprints are everywhere,
on every glass,
every excuse,
every night
I tried to disappear.
I see it.
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 not for a quick kiss,
not for the private language
we once shared.
So hear me clearly,
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.