HEART
The guys are roasting coffee, their hands sifting the beans and picking them up and looking at the color. I remember when they had the roaster working at the warehouse in Winston and the smell would overwhelm the patio, over the cigarettes, with Ian behind the counter as convoluted as ever. I miss this part of North Carolina, this one block pocket. That’s why I like Heart Coffee. Even though it always makes me anxious it’s the same kind of anxious that the warehouse made me. Aware of the mood of my own body.
Romance might be dead. I think on days like this with all the darkness and rain with the world tinted in grey tone like a silent film about how distant we are from dark language. I think of the sadness of the internet.
The holidays came and went without incident. I work all up to and in and around the new year. Here’s to working all the time, the coffee shop girl said today. She doesn’t know she’s in my story. Would it be weird if I printed it for her?
Yes. Oh yes. Especially since she takes her clothes off in it, in hysterics.
Romance is dead.
They are filling the buckets full of roasted beans, sealing them, brewing them. The smell is breaking. My eyes are wandering and they think I’m looking at them on purpose, but I am pure.
