The Coffee Shop (on the corner of the street)

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I can't make you love me - Bon Iver

    

     Thursday nights are good nights. Around 7 pm, there is a man who strums his guitar in a tiny coffee shop on the corner of the street. i rush in to find my spot in the corner close to him. thinking that if i sit close enough, his music will pour into my soul like the coffee being poured behind the counter for a table full of laughing teachers. they discuss books and their children. nothing else. I open up the laptop and begin to plan my night. subject after subject, i study restlessly. hoping one day that i will go off to college and leave this coffee shop on the corner of the street in my picture book of memories. the staff looks at me with understanding eyes and nicely ask, "do you want a refill?" ... "please," i mumble with a grateful sigh. 

       It's funny how this coffee shop on the corner of the street has begun to feel like home. how the chair has begun to form to my arched back as i stare at the papers piled on books. how the light is dark enough so it doesn't hurt my eyes, but light enough to show me that there is a light at the end of this tunnel. and how easily i have begun to believe that there is no world outside of this perfect place. 

        In here, nothing seems to matter. the world outside is just a figment of my imagination and can only be seen through dimmed windows with paintings of this weeks special, turkey sandwiches and loaded baked potato. in here, i can hide away for hours and no one will notice. they do not see the quiet girl who sits in the corner by the man who strums his guitar. they do not know who i am, but i know them. i see them every night. the doctors, the teachers, the teenagers searching for something better than the world outside, the couples who can't seem to keep their hands off each other, and the friends who haven't seen each other in ages, who share their stories over hot tea. 

        9 pm rolls around a little too fast. the staff ask again if i want a refill. "yes, please." i say. they clean around me and my stack of books, they offer the teachers one more round of coffee, and they turn the open sign off for the day. i hate this time of night because it means i have to brave the weather, pack up my books, and enter into the world that i had forgotten about.

        But when i leave. the scent clings to my clothes like a warm hug. reminding me that my world still exists on the corner of that street. and i will return again the next night. and the staff will learn my name. and one day i will find some clarity in the little coffee shop on the corner of the street with the man who strums his guitar. he plays just for me. in my world. where everything is warm and coffee-scented.

-em