If tomorrow I wake to find you

missing in action- I will hang

your dog tags on the doorknob,

and embrace the way the days pass

empty like space, the vast darkness.

If tomorrow I wake to find you

have whispered farewell without parting

your lips I will resent the way you treated me

with kindness for so long- only to turn

away without awarding answers

when I think I deserve them.

If tomorrow I wake to find you

as cold as a marble angel on an empty crypt

I will not suppurate over your memory

nor recall your tepid smile.

If tomorrow I wake to find you at all

it will be one day too soon and a lifetime too late.

~Cassandra Freiborg

11/30/2011