one of my favorite writing challenges or exercises is describing a person’s feature (eg: eye color) with lots of metaphorical language.
especially when it comes to minute details in someone’s features, the narrator usually only notes those when there’s some sort of emotional connect between the two. i like to use simile and metaphor to slip into a flashback most often.
my most recent one is describing the brown of someone’s eyes as
the same shade of shitty diner coffee, like the diner we stopped at during an overnight roadtrip. i asked for some coffee and refused to put any creamer in. you scrunched your nose at me. how could i like black coffee, especially the shitty diner coffee that gets served in the middle of the boones?
“because it’s the same color as your eyes.” you threw a straw wrapper at me and rolled your eyes. i laughed. and i realized i loved you.
and i would drink all the shitty, stomach churning coffee in the world to get back to that moment, high on unspoken love. just us in the diner, when the future seemed lovely and endless.
