For X23 Maximoff
I woke up and you were gone. The bed was cold like you hadn't been there for a while, and I guess you hadn't. Because the last time we laid in a bed together had been months ago. Yet I woke up every morning expecting you to be there. I sat up and looked around the room but I knew that you weren't going to come walking in, complaining about how everyone always had to use the bathroom at the same time. I knew I wasn't going to comb my fingers through your hair, which had been getting long but I wasn't complaining because it was so soft and pretty. I wasn't going to help you preen your wings anymore because there were no wings to preen. You had given them up for wings of fire that you could turn on and off and maybe that was the moment I knew I was losing you but I wasn't going to lose you without a fight.
I woke up and you were gone, standing at the window. The moonlight lit you up just enough for me to see that you had your eyes shut and that you were frowning. It wasn't the first night that this had happened, but it was the last. Because the next morning was the first of many that you left my bed cold. I got out of the bed that night and walked over to you. I knew you heard me because I wasn't trying to be quiet. When I wrapped my arms around you, you didn't lean into the hug, you didn't turn to face me. We stood like that until the sun came up and life started in the school. You pulled away and began to get dressed.
I woke up and you were gone. We had just made up, forgiving each other for our petty fighting. Yet, when I woke up, you weren't there. My heart pounded hard against my rib cage and I couldn't believe I had let someone hurt me so badly. I shuffled downstairs, not wanting to face the day without you because the days that I really hadn't had you had been so hard. When I got downstairs, I almost ran into you and ended up hugging you, spilling a hot cup of coffee all over myself but I hadn't cared. Because you hadn't actually left and in that moment of my weakness, I missed that you didn't hug me back, that you hadn't fussed over the burn like you normally would have.
I woke up and you were gone. You were pulled in on yourself against the wall beside me. I woke up screaming, feeling like every part of my body had just been put through a meat grinder. Yet you looked like the one who was truly suffering. Tears stained your beautiful cheeks, flushed with red, raw emotion. Your blue eyes were so broken and horrified and I knew, right then and there, that it was because of me. I had caused you some kind of pain and I was feeling guilt, something so new and fresh to me. I felt sick but I fought it down. You told me that you were done, that you couldn't do it anymore. I didn't want to hear those words but I knew it was only fair. Because I never listened to you; I always rushed in head first. I was so stubborn and never tried to change for you because I honestly thought I could never be changed. I was so wrong about that. I didn't know that I had already changed so much because of you. I had changed because now I asked questions first and attacked second. I stopped trying to kill, I stopped being apprehensive of everybody I ever met. I stopped hating the world and when we would fly over the seas of the forests, I appreciated the beauty that there was. I didn't realise it in time, though, because you broke up with me and took those left those little changes behind as bitter reminders of the mistakes I had ever made.
I woke up and you were gone. You had run off into space with some cosmic forces. You had traded out your last remaining bits of humanity for wings made of fire, for a soul made of evil. I could smell the changes on you as soon as I saw you. Something was eating away at you from the inside out, burning you up and you were okay with it. Your wings burned bright and hot, but I didn't flinch away because I wasn't afraid of getting burnt. Maybe that was the problem with me. Even though I had been burnt time and time again, I was willing to be burnt by you because there was something inside of me that could only be sedated by you. Even if your wings were no longer feathers and instead fire that could be turned on and off by your own will, I craved you.
I woke up and you were gone. The beautiful angel I had fallen in love with and changed so much of myself for without ever realising I was changing had become a graceful form of death. You wings burned brighter and brighter every day but I watched a light in your eyes flicker and die. Whatever had been eating you from the inside had finally consumed the last bit of you and I watched you fly off.
I watched you fly off and never come back so that when I woke up you were gone.