He asks how I am doing and I shrug. Partly because he despises the gesture, partly because I'm not ready to talk, partly because I don't know yet. How I am.
I stare into the ivory spirals floating atop the muddy coffee. Maybe the liquid could solidify into rationalization, evaporate into reason.
I stare harder.
Nothing.
I would now like to argue with him that my stare is in fact not icy. Objective evidence to trump his subjective experience. But I'm not willing to argue.
If the cup does not contain the rationality and reason I seek, doubtful it will hold the new language I need. I cannot argue. I've spoken the same words over and over and over until 'sorry' and 'change' and 'try' become purrs devoid of meaning.
I'm sorry, I didn't know.
I can change.
I will try harder.
I'm sorry, I didn't know.
I can change.
I will try harder.
I'm sorry, I didn't know.
I can change.
I will try harder.
Instead of looking at him, I consider the coffee. Black gold.
I lost my phone at the movie theatre where five or so of us baristas made up the majority of the audience of maybe nine in the 1700-capacity room on the fall night of its screening. Black Gold. All I remember is the disgust we expressed at the pride of the newly crowned manager of the original Starbucks store. Such snobs, small-city café elite. Purveyors of Midwestern premium grind, tamp and pour. We thought we were artists.
Then the hard, red chair ate my phone.
If a chair could swallow a cell, couldn't the half and half swirls form a circle, couldn't two lips jut forth from the black caffeinated water, and couldn't the contents of the dirty white teacup tell me what to say? Say it for me? Nothing?
I was in this kitchen with this teacup so many mornings and afternoons and nights, discussing Foucaultian theory and the absence of words being just as important as their presence. Silence as a form of discourse, not its opposite. He didn't much like Foucault. Sartre, yes. Heidegger, Camus. He liked to wrap his fingers around the Ibsen on my inner arm. Existentialism doesn't give us much to put our hands on. I thought it was the Ibsen, the ink, the words he wanted to touch. The arm was extraneous.
The coffee was always ready when I arrived. I usually sat to his right. I used to think my left side was somewhat pretty, my right side not pretty at all. I knew I wasn't beautiful, so I just hoped he'd think one facet of me was somewhat pretty. Now I sit to his left because he's seen every kind of my ugly.
I'm not trying to hold out, to make him speak first. I just don't know what to say. He was always the one with the words.
He made coffee like Grandma. Folgers from a can, pre-ground, with tap water running through the second-hand Krups. Strong, but not necessarily bitter. He could be Norwegian making coffee like that. Grandma would adore him, his blue eyes, his soft voice, his patient hands. He could make coffee better than I could, better than the most perfect 25-second shot from fresh, freshly roasted, freshly ground, organic Ethiopian fair-trade beans through a Synesso. Maybe because it was for me. Maybe because there was not one drop of pretension, not one ground of pride. My humility as a barista depended entirely on the mouth it would feed. Cell-phone talkers were either sent to the back of the line or charged $4.50 for a small latte with whole milk and two eleven-second shots. I would not serve that to the homeless men across the street. The care I lacked then was put toward the care I'd take turning the wand to steam Donal's one-shot medium two percent latte with extra foam. The steaming of the milk was the key. No bubbles. Silk.
I guess I've never been constant.
When I look up, I see him seeing me and start to cry. How many cups have I taken with room for cream and tears? It is too cold to cry. He thinks I am too cold to cry, which makes me cry more.
I apologize because I mean it. I watched him break himself upon me once and did nothing. When he told me and I was ready and aware, my eyes open and my senses heightened, I pushed until the jagged edges of my broken glass fingers and toes and elbows and knees cut the skin housing the heart I was trying to preserve. And I broke him anyway. I could break anything without trying.
I was sorry.
I am sorry.
I will always be sorry.
He smiles his porcelain smile. He doesn't drink coffee because he thinks those teeth will stain faster than the enamel ones.
I think about the girl he deserves. She is not in the coffee, not in the cup.
I think about when coffee was coffee.
Not intellectualism.
Not competition.
Not cause to catch up.
Not cause to stay up.
Not reason to reminisce.
Not necessity.
Not magic.
Not foreplay.
Not midnight kisses.
Not hands in hair.
Not sex.
Not reason to stay in the morning.
I was so young.
She doesn't drink coffee, that girl. She doesn't break hearts. She is beautiful from left and right and straight on, but doesn't even think about it. She has a menagerie in the hallway of her glass house, and English, French, German and Spanish dictionaries on her tongue. I wish I could find her for him. Make her for him. Be her for him.
When he takes my hand, I take in every last crack of the cold, ugly kitchen. Take in every callous and crevice of his warm, strong fingers and palms. I don't have the words.
I have a burn on my wrist from the brewer.
I have a burn on my forearm from the steam.
I have a callous at the base of my fingers from the tamper.
I have a blister of my palm from the portafilter.
He holds my hand. I drink his coffee. Silence is our most imperfect discourse.
I stare into the ivory spirals floating atop the muddy coffee. Maybe the liquid could solidify into rationalization, evaporate into reason.
I stare harder.
Nothing.
I would now like to argue with him that my stare is in fact not icy. Objective evidence to trump his subjective experience. But I'm not willing to argue.
If the cup does not contain the rationality and reason I seek, doubtful it will hold the new language I need. I cannot argue. I've spoken the same words over and over and over until 'sorry' and 'change' and 'try' become purrs devoid of meaning.
I'm sorry, I didn't know.
I can change.
I will try harder.
I'm sorry, I didn't know.
I can change.
I will try harder.
I'm sorry, I didn't know.
I can change.
I will try harder.
Instead of looking at him, I consider the coffee. Black gold.
I lost my phone at the movie theatre where five or so of us baristas made up the majority of the audience of maybe nine in the 1700-capacity room on the fall night of its screening. Black Gold. All I remember is the disgust we expressed at the pride of the newly crowned manager of the original Starbucks store. Such snobs, small-city café elite. Purveyors of Midwestern premium grind, tamp and pour. We thought we were artists.
Then the hard, red chair ate my phone.
If a chair could swallow a cell, couldn't the half and half swirls form a circle, couldn't two lips jut forth from the black caffeinated water, and couldn't the contents of the dirty white teacup tell me what to say? Say it for me? Nothing?
I was in this kitchen with this teacup so many mornings and afternoons and nights, discussing Foucaultian theory and the absence of words being just as important as their presence. Silence as a form of discourse, not its opposite. He didn't much like Foucault. Sartre, yes. Heidegger, Camus. He liked to wrap his fingers around the Ibsen on my inner arm. Existentialism doesn't give us much to put our hands on. I thought it was the Ibsen, the ink, the words he wanted to touch. The arm was extraneous.
The coffee was always ready when I arrived. I usually sat to his right. I used to think my left side was somewhat pretty, my right side not pretty at all. I knew I wasn't beautiful, so I just hoped he'd think one facet of me was somewhat pretty. Now I sit to his left because he's seen every kind of my ugly.
I'm not trying to hold out, to make him speak first. I just don't know what to say. He was always the one with the words.
He made coffee like Grandma. Folgers from a can, pre-ground, with tap water running through the second-hand Krups. Strong, but not necessarily bitter. He could be Norwegian making coffee like that. Grandma would adore him, his blue eyes, his soft voice, his patient hands. He could make coffee better than I could, better than the most perfect 25-second shot from fresh, freshly roasted, freshly ground, organic Ethiopian fair-trade beans through a Synesso. Maybe because it was for me. Maybe because there was not one drop of pretension, not one ground of pride. My humility as a barista depended entirely on the mouth it would feed. Cell-phone talkers were either sent to the back of the line or charged $4.50 for a small latte with whole milk and two eleven-second shots. I would not serve that to the homeless men across the street. The care I lacked then was put toward the care I'd take turning the wand to steam Donal's one-shot medium two percent latte with extra foam. The steaming of the milk was the key. No bubbles. Silk.
I guess I've never been constant.
When I look up, I see him seeing me and start to cry. How many cups have I taken with room for cream and tears? It is too cold to cry. He thinks I am too cold to cry, which makes me cry more.
I apologize because I mean it. I watched him break himself upon me once and did nothing. When he told me and I was ready and aware, my eyes open and my senses heightened, I pushed until the jagged edges of my broken glass fingers and toes and elbows and knees cut the skin housing the heart I was trying to preserve. And I broke him anyway. I could break anything without trying.
I was sorry.
I am sorry.
I will always be sorry.
He smiles his porcelain smile. He doesn't drink coffee because he thinks those teeth will stain faster than the enamel ones.
I think about the girl he deserves. She is not in the coffee, not in the cup.
I think about when coffee was coffee.
Not intellectualism.
Not competition.
Not cause to catch up.
Not cause to stay up.
Not reason to reminisce.
Not necessity.
Not magic.
Not foreplay.
Not midnight kisses.
Not hands in hair.
Not sex.
Not reason to stay in the morning.
I was so young.
She doesn't drink coffee, that girl. She doesn't break hearts. She is beautiful from left and right and straight on, but doesn't even think about it. She has a menagerie in the hallway of her glass house, and English, French, German and Spanish dictionaries on her tongue. I wish I could find her for him. Make her for him. Be her for him.
When he takes my hand, I take in every last crack of the cold, ugly kitchen. Take in every callous and crevice of his warm, strong fingers and palms. I don't have the words.
I have a burn on my wrist from the brewer.
I have a burn on my forearm from the steam.
I have a callous at the base of my fingers from the tamper.
I have a blister of my palm from the portafilter.
He holds my hand. I drink his coffee. Silence is our most imperfect discourse.
.
.
.
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