A simile is like...

I decided today that I hate similes. And I don´t means these :}
Not that I needed to travel 1/4 way around the world to do learn to hate them, but be that as it may, I decided it today:
¨His eyes were dark like coal.¨
Boring! Simile is only one step removed from cliché. There must be a better way to describe things without simile.
¨He stared out from the depths of a coal shaft¨.
or
¨He stared with his coal miner eyes¨.
Another one:
¨We were like ships in the night.¨
Blech!
¨We passed one another, unchampioned and unchallenged - penants fluttering, canons quiet.¨