The Coffee Table

We purchased books to put on it so people were more invited to stay. With friends, we sat around it and we talked about everything in life besides those books. We drank and toasted our glasses in the air above it. We left rings from beverages and those rings become the coasters for the next time we set down a drink �" whatever the occasion called for. It is a coffee table, but we did more than drink coffee. We read newspapers and told stories of our days ahead, we drank and played card games trying to forget the days we had.                

We put our feet up with our heels meeting the edge of the table. We meant no disrespect, we just needed to lean on something sometimes. Legs elevated, we leaned back into the couch, trying to level out. We lit up and calmed down. We drank our way down memory lane, far away from where we were. We passed out together sharing a buzz, and a bit of remorse.

I awoke with him not next to me, but across from me. It was late in the morning, the sun shining bright through the dust in the air. He looked so pure, blurry from the beaming in front of him. We needed to talk. With our knees pressing against the very spot that our heels rested the night before, and with our hands between our slightly parted legs, twiddling thumbs, we looked down. We needed to have this talk, but we couldn’t seem to say anything when we looked up at each other, over the table between us that said so much.

The books were stained, the finish was fading, and the edges had worn round to our needy feet. We spilled and sometimes waited too long to clean our messes up. We got hurt, or tired, and sometimes waited too long to put our legs back to standing position. We got lazy, comfortable, okay with the dirt and damage.

I played with my drink from the night before, aligning the round border of the glass with similar shapes made from sticky alcohol, never finding a perfect match. I looked up, and he was still looking at me. He came to sit on my side and he put the glass out of my reach. He grabbed the first book we ever bought together, and we read it for the first time without saying a word. The silence lingered. There was nothing left to say, no memories left to make. We both knew it would be the last time we sat together at that coffee table.