What You Took With You For The Rest of Your Life 

made no sense at all. With the dog at your heels, you ran back and forth into the house emerging with a broken espresso machine, your laptop, cell phone, a sleeping bag, two armfuls of loose clothing, two guitars in cases, a bag of potato chips and flip-flops. In less than fifteen minutes, you peeled away. The dog was inconsolable. What you didn’t take was your passport, warm clothing, family photos and your cellphone charger. The blanket I knit for you was tangled in the sheets and pillows of your bed which I didn’t make because the dog was curled like a button deep within the woolly folds. She cries in her dreams every night until I wrap my arms around her. Awake, she doesn’t leave my side. Her purple collar is missing. I hope you have it as a compass to guide you home when you’re no longer lost.

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By Lissa Staples

Lissa Staples is a classical singer and an emerging writer. She has been a student at The Writers Studio since 2014 and recently won Synkroniciti’s short story contest with her piece, The Month of Drowning, which was published September 2023 and subsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work can be read at Corvus Review, Synkroniciti, Heartwood Review, The Stickman Review, Emerge and The Write Launch among others.