Fantasy

goodbye

cheap chicken shops

with

smiling cartoon

birds

beckoning

us in

to feast on their

slit throats

and

bleached flesh.

goodbye

free papers

thrust into unwilling

hands

by purple and yellow

people

in baseball caps.

I won’t miss

circumnavigating them.

goodbye

escalators like teeth

hot dark tunnels

an armpit in my face

and the fear

of being pushed

or pushing

someone

to their death.

And

goodbye

your curls in the

bin

your brown eyes

and that smile

like a magnet

or honey

either way, a trap

and my hope that

this time

things would

be alright.

_______________________