Tim Hawkins The Goodbye Note

Tim Hawkins _________________________________________

The Goodbye Note

So you don’t forget,

Our time together / has curled away from / an enduring narrative arc.

Does that make sense?

I’m not quite sure how to put it, / but from now on we should avoid / whistling the same songs, / crying through the same films, / liking all the same books, beer / and restaurants, sharing / all the same old enthusiasms.

Our time together should be

forgotten like a flimsy alibi / scribbled on greasy napkins,

ignored like the inane melody / haunting your morning,

snubbed like the poor boy / who loved your whole childhood,

cast out sobbing / like a demonic soliloquy / into a herd of swine.

Yours truly.