Coffee Shop (Willie Soniat - Baton Rouge, LA)

I write this while sitting at the back table of my favorite coffee shop in a town that I hate that I live in.
Like honey added to decaf, I want my words to be sweet but not wake up from your daydream,
They are the words that I have trapped at the tip of my tongue,
The ones that I drop to my fingertips,
and let them dance themselves into existence across my keyboard.

If this were a few hundred years ago,
I would have these words tucked into the gentle folds of a love letter
Sealed from prying eyes with wax the color of a deep red rose
And marked by the subtle testament of a kiss that only you knew was there.
Something vintage.

Though this is not a hundred years ago
These words rest in the harsh glow of a computer screen
Remembered alongside the scent of white rose tea and a warm cinnamon roll.
Sung to a soft choir of piano keys humming in my headphones.
Let me speak them now in my mind
like I am reading the letter I wish to send to you.
I want to start with a greeting but hello seems to bold
You seem busy.
I don't want to bother you.

I want to compliment you but I don't know where to start
The concentration caressed in the gentle curves of your eyes
Your satisfaction with yourself seen in the slight smirk
The gentle curl of your hair forming the frame of your face
The way your fingers roam the length of your computer screen
As though you trace out your thoughts in the air between.
Is it okay for me to tell you that I think you’re beautiful?
I want to ask who you are? What do you like to do? What are the things that make you smile?
And how can I be one of them?

Were this a love story I feel this would be easier to find where to start.
A chance encounter where my words could at least have a place to meet you
even if they were a stuttering mess,
There would at least be pieces to pick up at that point.
Though as we are now,
we are but bystanders in each other’s lives
Sitting at opposite ends of a coffee shop
knowing as much about each other as sunrays know of the moon.
A familiar tragedy,
that the words I want to speak laid to rest on my tongue.
But I don't want to bother you,
so I wish you a beautiful day with a smile that could have been ours.
As I sit at the back of my favorite coffee shop in a life that I hate that I live in.

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