Goodbye. . . by Brooklyn Brewer

As I walked through the door of that fourth grade classroom,
I knew it was the end. Mommy had told me the night before,
it was my very last night with you. I was moving on to bigger things,
I was older now. It was time to say goodbye to Mommy checking over
all my homework, to the books being read to me. Time to say goodbye to
the miniature monkey bars, the undersized slide, the Barbie Band-Aids for my scabs
that appeared quite often on my knees. It was time to say goodbye to all of those “little kid” things, because I’m a big kid know. I’m in the “upper grades.” Time to say
goodbye to all the joys of being a cute diminutive girl with bright eyes
and buoyant pigtails.

But the most devastating of all, it was time to say goodbye to my
most beloved friend. Such marvelous times we had together, the coziness
and warmth of your cashmere and cotton. The joy of putting in one
foot at a time the RIGHT way. The ultimate thrill of tattooing my
tummy with a ball point pen, and the ease of zipping you right up
speedy-quick to cover the work of art before Mommy sees.

So now I am forced to move on to the dreaded pants and shirt.
The frigid air that flows awkwardly up and down my legs, between my toes,
from the tips of my toes to the middle of my pelvis will be excruciating.
Without a zipper to rapidly move up and down, I will not have anything
to do while I’m lying in bed waiting for sleep to come surround me.

I know I’m older now, and I must to move on, but you are just so immensely
difficult to say goodbye to. The two syllables of that word are two
that I can hardly bear to allow come out of my mouth.
But goodbye my treasured footy pajamas, goodbye.