I will admit I am an adult who still finds myself browsing through Tumblr occasionally. I’ve stumbled across writing prompts for every day in October and plan to stick to it, to write 30 excerpts or short stories based on those prompts. Here’s the first one.
He tugged the evergreen sweater down over his head and when he reappeared on the other side he was a glorious mess of ruffled hair. A week’s worth of stubble spread out across the slant of his jaw, rough against my skin when he drew me in close, nuzzling into my neck. Summer slid into fall almost too suddenly; yesterday the sun was searing down on still blooming flowers and now the air bites at every inch of skin it can reach. Tawny leaves dot every patch of grass and skitter across the street, crunching under tires as people rush off to wherever they’re heading.
He showed up at my door last night, half drunk and carrying the faint scent of weed on his clothes, propped against the doorframe to steady himself. Last time was supposed to be the last time, but we had grown to know each other so well in the dark it became a habit. This morning we woke up tangled up in the cream colored sheets and tangled with each other. Sometimes he slipped away in the early morning before the sun breached the skyline, and I woke to some sort of rambling apology message. It was always some version of he was fucked up and shouldn’t have stopped by, yet he was still drifting to my door, seeking out a safe place to land.
“Will you read to me?” He asked, slipping back into bed and wrapping his arms around my middle. The haze of sleep still clung to his eyes, half closed in the pale morning sunlight filtering in through the thin curtains. I hated to think it, but he should have disappeared by then, with the feeling of his lips only a phantom sensation on mine. I clicked on the lamp and reached over to the nightstand where I kept a small stack of books, shuffling through the titles unable to make a decision.
“Fiction or poetry?” I asked.
“Poetry.”
And so I read.
I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open
He rested his head against my chest, rising and falling with every nearly whispered line of words.
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls
I could feel his eyes peering up at me, the tips of his fingers swirling absentmindedly against the spot of skin peeking out from below my shirt.
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know, whoever I was, I was alive for a little while.
“I don’t want to leave again.”
He propped himself up on his elbows, his gaze meeting my eyes directly; it felt like a challenge. Who would falter first? His feet rested on unfamiliar and unsteady ground; he was standing on the edge waiting for the inevitable, for his footing to finally falter.
“Then stay.”
I ran my hand over the curve of his neck and back up to his cheek, brushing my thumb back and forth over the prickle of his stubble.
“Stay.”
The Rummy Writer 