She ran her finger across the tip of her shoe. It was smooth and dusty, cracked in places from the pressure of being bent. The holes in the bottom were starting to cause her socks to rip in the same places. She put her finger through the one in her heel and tickled the soft skin on the bottom of her foot.

She pulled a small green notebook out of her pocket and began scribbling down numbers, adding and subtracting, crossing out and circling. Her bus bounced by a group of young girls walking with back packs and soda cans. They were pointing and shouting at something on the other side of the street. She twirled her head around in her seat, pressing her forehead to the glass as the scene rushed by.

Missed it.

She returned to her notebook. The number “four” was circled.

The bus dipped before popping up onto the bridge to cross the river. It was peaceful how, even moving at 40 miles an hour, the water seemed to sit quietly still. Unlike the trees and signs and street lights whooshing by in blurry streaks.

“Three weeks late,” she mumbled, thinking back to the letter from the electric company. She’d thrown it out so that her roommates wouldn’t see that she hadn’t paid it yet. They would turn the power off this Friday. She had four days.

Three thirty in the afternoon. The ride home from work was always the same. An unopened novel lay in her lap with the same disposition as her hair gracing her neck. Her forehead, two or three shades lighter that the rest of her face, once again pressed against the tinted window in the back, corner seat. Everything was spinning in her wood chipper brain. Even the beer in her fridge seemed no more appealing than the cobwebs lining the baseboards of her mint green bathroom.

She dropped her head between her knees and wished it would just fall off. It would roll straight down the aisle painting the rubber floor red and then smash into the ticket machine. The passengers would flee their seats screaming. Blood splattered across the driver’s horrified face. She could feel it. How much lighter her body would be without this sad head to drag around.

“Hey, excuse me, miss... You dropped this,” a boy next to her interrupted, holding out the fat, overly ambitious novel she’d been “reading” for the past 3 months.

“I could never finish this one,” he said, handing her the paper brick. He had soft eyes and a genuine warmth about him.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, smiling, a bit of the rigidity melt off of the structure of her cheek bones.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m... fine. I don’t know, I guess. I just hate this time of day, you know. Nothing happens. The sun beats down, and it’s just so bright and so hot. I can’t think at all. It makes my brain feel like a melted pint of ice cream. It’s the most useless time of day. No wonder the rest of the world spends it drinking tea and napping.”

“Ha! Well, not the whole world,” he laughed.

“Yeah, maybe not. But I still see where they’re coming from. It’s enough to make you want to drop dead. Just stop right there and sleep for a thousand years.”

He didn’t respond. He glanced at the holes in her shoes and back at her face. She knew that her hair was greasy and looked like a child’s experiment with yarn and glue. Her eyes sunken into dark pits. She was tired and she’d meant what she’d said. He was sensing her sadness, she thought. Recognition crossed his face like the pedestrians on the street, conscious yet unconcerned. He studied her casually for another fraction of a second before seemingly becoming self conscious and shifting his gaze back to his own footwear.

The bus screeched to a short stop.

She turned back to the window. A homeless man had fallen asleep on the traffic median. He was still clutching his sign in his gloved hands. A dog stood beside him, staring straight ahead, tethered to the base of a yield sign. Surrounded by speeding cars, he sat there panting in the Texas sun, waiting for the man to wake up.

you have always been one to call

for me with a voice like whiskey.

raspy and sugar sweet, i am

helpless to your come-hither stare.

golden gaze ringed in green,

lips thin and smile stretched wide,

i am enchanted by your every

blink and stride, your laugh or cry.

i follow you as the river knows

to reach for the sea. my

body is liquid under the grasp

of the earth carved just for me.

we fall into bed with laughter,

and i’ve compared us to a puzzle,

the way my form molds with

yours like we were once one body.

i am here, and you are with me.

we lay and talk for hours, just

to hear each other speak. and

i know that i can trust you

to keep me safe when the night

rolls through, with dreams heavy

and dark. i fall asleep in mid-word.

i’ve always loved the sound of honey.

I think of you while I brush my teeth. If I saw you every time I looked in a mirror, I’d feel beautiful.

You’re like good books and jigsaw puzzles; not necessarily thrilling, but nice to spend time with after a long day of doing difficult things.

You’re a cartoon marathon on a Saturday morning.

You’re every shade of blue and green.

When birds sing in spite of the rain, it’s just like how you speak with me.

I see you in the faces of all the people who tip their waitresses and smile at children and hold doors open for strangers.

You’re a long shower and a homemade meal.

You’re clothing fresh from the dryer.

You’re the original Star Wars trilogy.

You’re the ever-present narrator in the back of my head, and you always have something interesting to say.

I was homesick every day before I met you.

The stars are giant balls of hot gas.

Moons are large lumps of stone and dust.

Storms are atoms colliding, nothing special there.

Oceans are massive bodies of water, boring!

But love?

Love is the most confusing thing that can be imagined.

Like looking at all the leaves on a tree.

Incomprehensible in one big picture,

but each part makes perfect sense.

The way they speak,

the way they move,

their thoughts,

and their feelings.

And then there is you,

the other part that ties it all together.

Like a rope tied to another, and the fibres are what makes it up.

Tougher together than ever apart,

but still capable of being alone.

It all depends on the knot that is used.

#love

#soconfusing

your voice is as warm as the coffee i hold

on a cold winter's day, before the oncoming snow.

your touch sets my insides ablaze

like the first time i had whiskey, before i knew myself;

you touch me as though i'm an old novel that's been

sitting on your bookshelf since before your mother bought it.

you're cigarette smoke in a world full of worse,

the reminiscent nostalgia of some summers ago.

you're chlorine in the summer, pumpkin in the fall,

you're the one to say 'i love you' right before i'd end a call.

you're a green light in a highway of red,

you're the last good loaf of on brand bread.

you make monday's feel like friday's,

you make our train station feel like home,

you are the cookies on a rainy day

and my cozy sweater for fall.

life wouldn't be the same with no you,

like the alphabet with no z,

you're the one that shows me how to swim,

without you, there'd be no sea.

Humans are like the ground. The ground provides the foundation that nearly all living beings have to use. We use it to grow food, live, and in some comparisons, especially for this prompt, love. It is the foundation that comes from nearly all of the activities that one has to do. Like the ground, it is deformed, cracked, and especially never actually straight which shows the bumpy relationships that love can be. But at least it is stable!

(I was pretty unsure what the prompt was actually asking so I just sort of winging it)

(I’m not exactly sure what you wanted for this challenge, but this is what I wrote. Sorry) Going to the bathroom is a normal part of everyone’s life, but if you’re like me you cherish the time spent in your bathroom. Just think about it, you get this whole room to yourself to do whatever you dream of. I would say that 90% of the time I spend in the bathroom is not going to the bathroom. I’m sitting on my bathroom floor right now with my aching body writing this. Sure I have a bedroom but why write in there when I have a perfectly clean bathroom available basically all the time. My room has flaws. It’s freezing in the winter, on fire in the summer, two out of the three lights are out, it’s a mess, and it’s full of breakable stuff my cat could push onto the floor at any moment. Now take my bathroom. It’s always clean because it’s impossible for me to “go” in a dirty restroom, it’s small and cozy, quick access to the toilet. I mean, writing in the bathroom is perfect for me. My day consists of me coming home and then sitting in my bathroom writing for like 5 hours non-stop. I honestly can’t explain it. Just something about my bathroom inspires something deep within me and I bet it would inspire you too.

To compare you to the sun

would not do you justice

for it is not star dust and fire

that makes you blush

To liken my love to ocean

would be a lame simile

for a thought of you

is warm and comforting

To see our passion like a storm

would be blind to what it is

sweat and warm skin,

gentle whispers and grasping hands

To say we are eternal

would be a grave mistake

for what make our love so special

is the fleeting moments we spend togther.

my love for you is not bound

to heavenly metaphors

of natural wonders.

while i know that you are

as beautiful as the moon,

watching down on me

from her perch in the

star-speckled sky,

it seems too abstract

to compare you to.

instead, i'll tell you,

you are so much more.

you are as comforting as a warm blanket;

the little sigh you make

as you nestle close to me on the couch,

my fingers twirling absentmindedly

in your sweet-smelling hair.

you are as captivating as an enthralling novel;

written like the first time we met,

when our eyes connected across the room

and i couldn't look away.

you are as familiar as your old pair of slippers;

that you have worn every day

for the last eon,

but you always relish in wearing

for the reoccuring comfort they provide.

you are my everything,

and i don't need

gargantuan words

or delicately crafted metaphors

to tell you that.

Love is nothing special.

It's a hug that brings comfort when it's needed most,

and talking for hours about everything and nothing.

It's a smile that comes too infrequently - from them and from you,

and singing all their favorite songs as loud as you can.

It's late nights and even later mornings,

and trying as hard as you can to make it work.

Love is nothing special, but he makes it extraordinary.