Bed Bug Metamorphosis Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

I wake again from a recurrent nightmare.
I have been subsumed in a consulting assignment
For which I may or may not have been contracted
Within a labyrinthine bureaucracy somewhere
Abroad, in a very foreign country that despises me.

There has been a problem establishing the contract,
With arguments with officials over the terms of reference -
Days and days have passed in meaningless waiting
Punctuated by occasional hearings and meetings
To assess the validity of my claims for payment and release.

I feel that progress has been made as my dream nears end
And that the papers that I have submitted with my claims
Have at last been given due consideration - and that my work
Has been given some recognition and sign off by my keepers -
Such that an airline booking for tomorrow may be finalized.

And then I wake up and my immediate anxiety subsides
As I see the pale green curtains of my bedroom
And feel the quilt and pillow into which I have burrowed.
I am no doubt a fortunate insect or type of insidious vermin
That is still recognizable - only part into transformation
From the useful to the useless - to the burden.

We have a lot in common you and I Gregor Samsa.
We started off with the noble aim of independence
And took pride in being the family breadwinner
But things and people break down and become nuisances.

But for the moment I only relive the possibility of despair
In my nightmares - the quiet terror of redundancy,
The irrelevance in cash terms of a former productive unit,
The unraveling horror of impending dependency and frailty,
The inevitable and final separation from normal homecoming.