When your eyes wander
from that book
and let drift
a gaze.

The last read
words
repeating their loop
again and again,
no longer meaning
anything.

Where do
you go?

When playing
with that band of flesh
around your finger,
colored lighter
than the rest.

Unaware that
checking your phone
hasn’t caused it to ring 
any more often.

The time spent
regretting
won’t
make your
heart feel warmer,
just your coffee
colder.

Where do
you go
after leaving here,
when you’re already
so far
away?

Gimme a subject, a character, a line of dialogue, a situation, a setting, or anything else you can think of.

Send it to me and help dictate what I write about, next!

By the time she returned from Paris, he knew what he hadn’t been willing to admit for months, now.

Meg stepped into the foyer and set her suitcases aside. Rob glanced up from the couch; his eyes leaving the newspaper but his body staying put. She had been gone for two months, yet her arrival couldn’t even motivate him to set his newspaper down. For a split second, he had forgotten her plane was set to arrive.

“You didn’t miss me, did you?” said Meg.

Rob closed the newspaper and folded it against the crease. He noticed that she had dyed her hair a shade darker, but from all of the pictures he had ever seen of women in France, they all seemed to have dark hair. But she had started to wear lipstick. Something she wasn’t accustomed to doing in their three plus years. Usually a sudden change in appearance such as this in a relationship, meant only one thing.

It didn’t matter to Rob if she had, in fact, taken relations with another man.

“You don’t have to say it. In fact, I prefer to find out this way,” said Meg. She opened a suitcase and felt her way around. “Can I ask you something, though?”

Rob leaned over on the couch and massaged his brow. Emptiness, he found, hurt more than anger. He wished he felt something. Anything.

“When did you know? That it was over between us, I mean.” Meg found the box she was looking for.

Rob got up from his perch and shut the window, then locked the sill. He kept his eyes trained out the window as he caught her reflection.

“I like the dark hair,” he said almost apologetically. “It brings out your complexion. Most people look their roughest in winter because their hair isn’t sunbleached, so all their flaws are more evident in contrast.” Rob turned around. “But I always liked you best in the winter.”

Meg handed the box over to Rob.

“Funny. You always did like my flaws more than the charms. Maybe that’s why it couldn’t work. You can open that after I leave. It’s probably easier that way.”

Meg opened the front door and grabbed her suitcases. She turned away.

“You know it’s funny, isn’t it?” Rob said. Meg stopped and turned around.

“How so?”

“It’s actually easier when there’s yelling and screaming, no?”

Meg turned away.

“Good bye, Rob.”

Meg strode to her car. Rob watched as her dark hair swayed back and forth, as though waving goodbye. Rob raised his hand and waved back. He didn’t open the box.

He didn’t have to.