I miss the stories that unfold from my writer’s point of view, sitting by the window at the coffee shop down the block. The long and absentminded strolling of strangers’ faces for which I like painting stories, stories that stir the words that unfold on my white document page. The smell of ground coffee grains and the temptation of a piece of lemon cake. I look pretty, I’m wearing red lipstick,

blonde curls falling down my back

do they see a stories maker

or do they see a girl

who’s pretending to be busy.

Yet whose disturbing calmness betrays the names

jutting out of her writer’s brain

for her novel’s climax end

I’m longing for her, for me, on wednesday afternoons or on monday mornings when skipping classes, because it is more vital to write a few words than doodling in the margins of a notebook – except when a few dates and words and good puns emerge from the lecture –

like a story gateway

I miss being this highly caffeinated kid with a winsome smile that can eat the world, and falling a little in love with every pretty girl or boy

that comes by the coffee shop’s door.

Image courtesy of Sunyu Kim.