The cafe.

We sat in the loft in the cafe downtown. There was no one else around to see us not speaking to each other. The coffee steamed. I took the lid off of my paper to-go cup. Is it strange to get a paper cup when you drink your coffee at the cafe? I'd like to say I did it because I didn't want to dirty a dish for the employee, but that would be a lie. I really did it because i want to be able to leave whenever I want to. A paper cup is a backup plan. A security blanket.  I can't tell if the ceramic cup looks more like commitment, or arrogance. Either way, it seems to stay hot longer and is better for the environment to use the ceramic. I can't help but feel like I'm being pressured to care more about that sort of thing when I'm in a coffee shop. I also can't tell if that's altruism or self-righteous. 

I'm wondering how you're feeling about all of this but we're not speaking. Wouldn't it be funny if we were thinking the same thing? I want to ask you but hope you'll ask me first instead until I give up hope and start to resent you for it. These are tricky times navigating the axioms of intentionality. Are these not the birthplace of our values, and if infected are our values not infected? You're not even looking at me. You wouldn't care if I brought it up. It's not where my mind should be. Where should it be?  Exactly? Precisely? I trace around your almond shaped eyes. Like a child climbing around the mouth of a cave, I flirt with the danger of the mystery, of the darkness, I want to make a jack-o-lantern out of you and illuminate your mind. I wonder when exactly we turned into pumpkins. You asked me once last time we were here why pumpkin spice is limited to fall at this place. I said to keep it special. Maybe we've been spending too much time together.

I wander around the cafe in my mind. I'm somewhere else, maybe I'm looking for you. It felt like you wandered off too. Maybe that's what happens when we die. Maybe our minds just wander off from our body, I wonder if we'd recognize each other when we got there. Maybe that's why I always want to know what you're thinking. I just want to know where our minds go, so we can find each other when we need to. This life is mostly sitting somewhere with someone and picking new songs to listen to. We always change our tunes. 

Maybe we can find each other in songs. Maybe I should write more just for that reason. I hear 'The Flaming Lips' playing through the cafe. I looked at you hoping you would know what I was thinking. You looked at me at the same time. Even now I can't know if you were thinking the same thing. I look down at my coffee, the darkness swallows me, no cream, no sugar. The mystery of language is in a black hole somewhere in outer space. I still have faith I can find it someday. You told me I'd make a great astronaut once. Your eyes are galaxies to me. They stimulate me. They terrify me and swallow me like coffee