birthday.
Today is my birthday and I am 21, yay!
two strangers sitting in a coffee shop
sitting awkwardly alone
in the scent and the silence.
they share a dance of darting eyes
and nervous lips
sipping from heavy mugs
adjusting shirt collars and straightening hair.
a candle burns in the center of each table
adding the glow of false intimacy
as they rustle their newspapers
like Sunday breakfast.
a woman uncrosses her legs
then crosses them again, but differently
she returns to her coffee
with an air of confidence that falters
each time she puts down her mug.
a man clears his throat
and blushes at the sound
because it echoes in the almost empty café.
he’ll clean his glasses
and read his paper
until every words has been consumed.
then the tired barista will smoke another cigarette
and wipe down the tables.
The liquid from her tightly clutched paper cup was received gratefully by two wind-crisped lips on merit of its temperature, not its taste. Even her fingers loved the coffee, its radiating warmth a welcome contrast to their chilled, ridged surfaces. She thumped a foot awkwardly against a skewed table leg, focusing her narrowed eyes on tiny ripples fracturing the glossy black surface below the steam in her cup: shiny, intricate and perfect. Observing each rhythmic wave with eyes incapable of capturing the fleeting details brought by each thump, she wished that with a blink or perhaps a stretching of her eyelids she could freeze the little black pond mid-motion. She'd be preserving, however momentarily, what she'd only been able to glimpse.
She recalled evenings in a fluorescent kitchen, cool night air sifting through cracked brown shades bound by fraying yarn. To her, the dull, chirping wheeethat accompanied the muffled breeze was a product of night itself, not the elusive winged creatures with squat bodies and long legs. She had spent hours with eyes determinedly squished shut, propelling her small child's frame from the yellow tile floor. She had been trying to capture the feeling of being mid-air. Think NOW, she'd coax herself, but the words would be passing after she'd already returned to the ground. It had been a childish game, but clearly one she wasn't finished playing.
Shifting her intent gaze back to the well-worn and busy pages of an open notebook in front of her, she pushed her thoughts away from the memories clicking behind her forehead in snippets, tidbits, chewed and mottled chunks with no progression or sense of reality. Scribbled characters, ink scrapes and swirls melted and shifted on the splayed pages in front of her before snapping back into a blocky focus. She wanted to write but someone kept kicking her table. Glancing beneath the table's wobbly wooden surface she realized that she kept kicking her table. Stop it, she told her foot, which was clad in a dirty black shoe. Her toes smiled defiantly beneath the leather and continued to kick with measured persistence.
Faking a yawn, she lifted her eyes in time for them to meet an artfully slanted and deceivingly awkward frame, one she recognized before seeing its attached head. The approaching body's movements were not necessarily smooth; she could easily envision its limbs entangled in a heap of flesh on the floor. But even such a faux pas would surely appear plotted, part of some arrogant European scheme to entice and enchant onlookers. She envisioned the body rising slowly from its intentional mishap, adjusting matching layers of denim and carefully mussed tufts of hair, smiling shyly and raising dark eyebrows at her. She jutted the corners of her mouth up in an instinctive half-smile at the approaching form, aimed specifically at its head. Cursing herself silently for the dispensation of an unwarranted kindness, she twisted the smile and made it wry with a well-practiced arch of an eyebrow. The head's own features appeared to wobble in hesitation before its own lips spread in an attempt to entice. As the form whooshed past her in her lowered chair, the head's eyes rolled downward and studied her form.
Immediately encased in her own arms, brow now collapsed and tightly creased, she sipped her coffee and let her foot resume its drawl. Focused intently on the swirls, rings, patterns in her cup, she wanted to feel as innocent as she had leaping from the floor.
two strangers sitting in a coffee shop
sitting awkwardly alone
in the scent and the silence.
they share a dance of darting eyes
and nervous lips
sipping from heavy mugs
adjusting shirt collars and straightening hair.
a candle burns in the center of each table
adding the glow of false intimacy
as they rustle their newspapers
like Sunday breakfast.
a woman uncrosses her legs
then crosses them again, but differently
she returns to her coffee
with an air of confidence that falters
each time she puts down her mug.
a man clears his throat
and blushes at the sound
because it echoes in the almost empty café.
he’ll clean his glasses
and read his paper
until every words has been consumed.
then the tired barista will smoke another cigarette
and wipe down the tables.
The liquid from her tightly clutched paper cup was received gratefully by two wind-crisped lips on merit of its temperature, not its taste. Even her fingers loved the coffee, its radiating warmth a welcome contrast to their chilled, ridged surfaces. She thumped a foot awkwardly against a skewed table leg, focusing her narrowed eyes on tiny ripples fracturing the glossy black surface below the steam in her cup: shiny, intricate and perfect. Observing each rhythmic wave with eyes incapable of capturing the fleeting details brought by each thump, she wished that with a blink or perhaps a stretching of her eyelids she could freeze the little black pond mid-motion. She'd be preserving, however momentarily, what she'd only been able to glimpse.
She recalled evenings in a fluorescent kitchen, cool night air sifting through cracked brown shades bound by fraying yarn. To her, the dull, chirping wheeethat accompanied the muffled breeze was a product of night itself, not the elusive winged creatures with squat bodies and long legs. She had spent hours with eyes determinedly squished shut, propelling her small child's frame from the yellow tile floor. She had been trying to capture the feeling of being mid-air. Think NOW, she'd coax herself, but the words would be passing after she'd already returned to the ground. It had been a childish game, but clearly one she wasn't finished playing.
Shifting her intent gaze back to the well-worn and busy pages of an open notebook in front of her, she pushed her thoughts away from the memories clicking behind her forehead in snippets, tidbits, chewed and mottled chunks with no progression or sense of reality. Scribbled characters, ink scrapes and swirls melted and shifted on the splayed pages in front of her before snapping back into a blocky focus. She wanted to write but someone kept kicking her table. Glancing beneath the table's wobbly wooden surface she realized that she kept kicking her table. Stop it, she told her foot, which was clad in a dirty black shoe. Her toes smiled defiantly beneath the leather and continued to kick with measured persistence.
Faking a yawn, she lifted her eyes in time for them to meet an artfully slanted and deceivingly awkward frame, one she recognized before seeing its attached head. The approaching body's movements were not necessarily smooth; she could easily envision its limbs entangled in a heap of flesh on the floor. But even such a faux pas would surely appear plotted, part of some arrogant European scheme to entice and enchant onlookers. She envisioned the body rising slowly from its intentional mishap, adjusting matching layers of denim and carefully mussed tufts of hair, smiling shyly and raising dark eyebrows at her. She jutted the corners of her mouth up in an instinctive half-smile at the approaching form, aimed specifically at its head. Cursing herself silently for the dispensation of an unwarranted kindness, she twisted the smile and made it wry with a well-practiced arch of an eyebrow. The head's own features appeared to wobble in hesitation before its own lips spread in an attempt to entice. As the form whooshed past her in her lowered chair, the head's eyes rolled downward and studied her form.
Immediately encased in her own arms, brow now collapsed and tightly creased, she sipped her coffee and let her foot resume its drawl. Focused intently on the swirls, rings, patterns in her cup, she wanted to feel as innocent as she had leaping from the floor.