back from hiatus post
prompt : romanticising my grief It’s 5.00 in the morning, and I wake up to the echo of you. You loved these quiet hours of the mornings, when the world was in limbo between sleep and wakefulness. ‘It’s nice, being awake when others are asleep. There’s something intimate about this,’ you said. ‘You should try it too. Let’s get breakfast when that happens!’ Surrendering to the ache, I sprang from bed at dawn, racing the first train to you, where a mediocre breakfast cradled your lingering ghost.
It’s 5.00 in the morning again, and I’m waking up to the afterimage of you. You’ve been quieter recently, perhaps carrying burdens unbeknownst to me. So I try to fill in the gaps you left, cracking jokes or debriefing about my day. You laugh, but with the strain of an aching soul. But I keep quiet, taking solace in knowing you would reveal it to me soon enough. And so I persist in motion—racing, breathing—for you alone, though these mornings drag into slow, repetitive dirges of longing and wonder.
It’s 5.00 in the morning again, and I woke up to the trace of you. You’ve left for greener pastures with a scholarship in hand, without even a second glance back at the boarding gate. You talk about keeping in touch, yet jumped at the opportunity to bury us as if we were something to be ashamed of. Were we that easy to forget? To leave? To abandon? Yielding to the room's creeping shadows—darker than ever in their mournful hush—I shut my eyes, and suddenly, it's no longer 5 a.m., but our stolen eternity.
