Coffeeshop Courtship

Here we are again, exchanging glances from across the open room lit in low soft
fluorescence emanating from can lights recessed in the vaulted ceiling mirrored on a polished
wooden café floor. You behind the counter at the register patiently waiting for the man in the
blue hood to dig out a wadded dollar bill and some assorted change in exchange for the steamy
to-go cup of coffee just brewed. You don’t mind the time, it affords you chances to steal quick
peeks of my eyes fixated upon you through a shoulder length veil of gleaming copper tendrils,
afraid that you’ll see me seeing you; afraid that you won’t; afraid you might glimpse the true me
beneath an integument of nervous twitches and feigned sotovoche. I pretend not to notice, but
cannot deny the telling flash your eyes burn into what you see as my stoic stern face while yours
gives nothing away but a slight upturn of the lips to signal willingness to play the game, this
game, our game.
To extend even the softest of hellos to close the communication gap between us seems
far too risky. It’s never easy for me to reveal my inner feelings, I appear to read like an open
book, but the text is all ciphers, “puns and reedles” as Joyce wrote. To know me is to grasp
the intangible; feathers of smoke, droplets of water in the hand. Decisions mundane become
monumental when I think of intention. What motivates me? What are my drivers? What does
she desire? What matter these thoughts? Quicksilver reason quiets a lusting heart’s echo against
tympanum like evening tide breaks against cliff sides. I yearn to pass beyond lust and hesitance
continues when understanding is all I want because it’s never that easy. Then despair slips in
unexpected—viral radio filler with the unforgettable nauseating hook and toe-tappin’ beat. No
one cares to be around the lonesome, sulking and needy, wet towel personality soaked in self-
pity. Grave ashen faces in place of trembling rouge eyelids whose swollen beads distort and
reflect the rosy wisp of ruptured capillaries. Features harden involuntarily the further I sink into
the mouth of doubt and betray the intensity of my thoughts to those who recognize this all too
frequent tendency.
A jet engine roars to life and snaps me from over analysis and into total confusion. Why
the fuck am I hearing a jet? Does anybody else hear that? How long have I been seated here,
drowning in myself? The barista has moved to the espresso machine and calm washes over me
to the shriek of a crushed bean concentration camp for the final caffeinated solution. Close call.
Thought I was hearing my mind tear itself piecemeal, pressure release from a suffocated
conscience.