Coffee Cups and Notebooks

I glance at the time and with a start, I realise I have just wasted the entire day doing absolutely nothing. I sigh and pick up my cup; the contents are cold and slosh around noisily as I clumsily put it back on the desk. The light from the window has faded and my room is blanketed in shadow. I reach for the lamp in hopes of bringing some light into my little dark corner of the world.

Layers of dust cover the shelves above my desk, fuzzy grey blankets covering up the mementos of years past. Tomorrow, I tell myself, I’ll get out the duster and clear them away. Empty perfume bottles, pretty on the outside but empty inside are lined up on the shelf, half finished song lyrics and a locket that says ‘I love you’ complete the scene.

I never wear the locket anymore, it hangs from my shelf, a grim reminder that pretty words can still lie. Any affection I might have held for the person who gave it to me lost in a fog of deceit and a handful of paper dreams. For a moment I allow myself a trip down memory lane, carefully skirting past the black holes and dark alleys that live there. I search for the tiny golden moments, fresh as the moment they were born, soft around the edges and coloured with the hazy glow of a summer afternoon.

I can’t live in memory alone so with the knowledge of better moments, I send myself hurtling back to reality, landing with a bump as always. A wry smile and the after taste that comes from too many coffees and not enough sleep lingers. I get out my notebook, the soft scratches of my pen against the paper and the smooth flowing ink in stark contrast to the storm that is brewing inside me.

Writing smoothes away the rough edges and I feel the start of a proper smile, soft and sad but a smile all the same. The storm passes and with it and remaining traces of anger I might have felt. The notebook slips from my hand as my eyes close slowly, the sleep I have been denied in the last few days finally reaching out to claim me, soothing me in its warm embrace.

This morning I woke from a dream filled sleep. Not exactly refreshed, more puzzled as I try to decode the fragments of dreams I remember. A cup of coffee and a read through my scribbles from the night before and I’m about ready to face my day.

A butterfly on a string, dreaming of escape, that would be me.