i. it's a sad morning, but only i feel it. he wakes me up with *****. it's 5am again but still too dark outside to see so i take in the scent of his sick; i notice myself being pulled closer. i realize he thinks im sleeping and hope he lets me stay--he doesn't, but it's not his fault. it never is. he drags me out by the knobs on my feet; i dig my nails in the carpet, puke pooling under the fingers, the fibers rip the nails right off me--he starts to cry. i wonder why he's crying. he drives me home in silence, leaves me spitting in the snow, crashes the car on the way home. i'm through two pots of coffee already by the time he decides to love me in the morning.

ii. i wake, again, with my head on the floor; but this time it's my own. this 5am is dark as well, save for the light of my phone on the wall--it's ringing, the buzzing sticks knives in my head. i pick up and see his pale green eyes, deadpan and silent; i hear him crying in my head nonetheless. he asked me if he woke me up and i lie; i'm just thinking about the muscles on his back, the worry-lines, and our nicotine habit. he is unrecognizable now, but it's my fault--he looks so different under street lamps at 3am, so much softer when my vision is clouded by amphetamines. i find solace in the fact that, after all this time, he might be too late.

"we would've been forever," he said. "you and i would've been forever." i realize his eyes aren't even ******* green anymore. i thought you weren't afraid of anything? "i know," i say, and i hang up the phone for the last time.