Ten Rings

The phone rings.

One.

I tell myself

he is busy.

A missed call

is an ordinary mercy.

Two.

Maybe the phone

is on the counter.

Water runs

in the sink.

Dogs barking

at nothing again.

Three.

The house

feels larger.

Silence stretches

 through the rooms,

 like a hallway

 without lights.

Four.

I think of him,

 staring through windows,

as if the world outside

 is not

 the one

 he lives in.

Six.

The ocean

 comes to me.

How easily

 something living

 can vanish

 beneath the surface.

Seven.

My mind

 opens doors

 I keep locked.

Shadows,

 not my own,

 crawl through him.

Eight.

My hand tightens

 around the phone,

like gripping a railing

 above deep water.

Nine.

The ringing

 feels heavier,

as if it knows something

 I refuse to name.

Ten.

The ringing

 stops.

I whisper

 his name

 into the room.

The room

 does not answer.

The silence

 that follows

 is the longest sound

 I have ever heard.

Because loving him

 has taught me this.

Sometimes courage

 is nothing more than waiting.

For a voice

 you love

 to come back.

Author's Note

Skip Five. Panic hits, the count fractures, and you feel it in the empty space.
Sometimes what isn’t written lands harder than anything on the page.

Reviews

[Randall]

A Very well written peice, Curly Grace. Sounds as if it were written right from the heart.

I give you an A~ only because you didn't use a single comma to slow the reader's voice, to linger their thoughts. I say that with a smile.

Randall...

[Curly Grace]

***chuckling*** but I did remember the periods... ;)wink