The time had come to grow up,
To take off the glasses and place
The squishy wriggly lenses,
On her pale blue eyes
That she framed with kohl,
and shaped with shadow.

The time had come to grow up,
To take her mother’s needle
sew the split of a skirt,
and lift up the modest hem,
expose the knobbled knees,
Coco wouldn’t have approved.

The time had come to grow up,
To threw Enid in the bin,
And replace the old comics,
With glossy new magazines
And chat on the phone,
Until the dawn broke.

She shrugged off without a care,
The duffel coat of childhood,
The icecream of innocence,
The doll of oblivion.
Like every other she bore,
The kitten heel of stress,
The blush of insecurity,
The It bag of nostalgia.