My brand of cold cream
Promising skin like a dream
From the shelf disappeared
The emptiness leered
I went the next day
Equipped with a hopeful ray
The day after that
The shelf at me spat
I looked at the space where it used to be
Saw the creams and lotions that meant nothing to me
I looked again
To be certain
No, it definitely wasn’t there
Its absence at me stared
I went a week later with desire frantic
Wishing it back by some sort of magic
And tried to search in vain
All of a sudden felt the minutest of pain
Why did my favourites always leave me
I could not understand, I failed to see
And when it finally appeared
It was just as I had feared
It wasn’t the same
And I felt again the tiny pain
It was almost but not quite the same
And it had a slightly different name
For a replacement I had to settle
I couldn’t afford to be weak as a petal
When you are emotionally destitute
You often make do with a substitute
The old is gone, there is the new
The room is the same with a different view
But things will never be the same again
This is now, that was then