would you rather--

wake up lazily,
dark clouds rolling above the hills outside,
soft plip-plip of the rain pattering against the window,
leaving the warmth of your nest,
you head to the kitchen to grab a *** of scorching coffee,
and it's bitter and home and complete, just like you like it.
and as you're swallowing, humming an old tune to yourself,
you realize.
it's gone.
you don't know where you left it.
where it is now.
but it's gone. dear god, dear god, it's gone.
you rush to the corners of your mind
pillaging memories and experiences
because where did it go?
you had it--you had it, I know you had it--but now you don't
you can picture it, so clearly, in your smile, in your eyes and--
now it's missing.
and you empty and discard those boxes you'd so neatly stacked up
and exhume those bodies you'd so categorically buried
and--and--it's not there. or here. or anywhere.
overnight, it disappeared.
like the memory of sitting in your grandpa's lap.
or those french revolution dates you memorized not long ago.
it's gone and you're not sure how
but everything feels kind of numb
and it feels like...this is it.
snap.
the end.

wake up with a pounding in front of your eyes,
he's lying next to you but the blankets are cold,
and his freckles seem dimmer; his eyes more brown than green
neither of you is smiling,
and the dishes are piled up in the sink,
and it's been like this for a while.
the hugs turned into lingering gazes,
the lingering gazes into cold awkward tension.
you couldn't name it for the life of you;
that acidic pit at the bottom of your stomach
that numbness around your twined fingers
the dialogue that dies as soon as it leaves your mouths
like a joke taken too far or a poem meant for another day.
it's a slow death.
the i love yous' absence is so strong you constantly hear it in your ear
buzzing, ringing, reminding you of a feeling that once was.
in the middle of a crowd, your eyes don't go to his anymore,
no more shared grins, eyebrow lifts, mouthed words.
dancing, and waltzing, and spinning around the truth
because it's gone.
it hurts (or maybe, it's supposed to)
and, either way, it's gone.
and now, you're just waiting for the crows to pick at your corpse,
pick at it and declare it dead.
because someone has to.