coffee

There was in this apartment a heavy smell of coffee and humidity,                                            like something had been brewing far too long—                                                                        the feeling of something too heavy inside her, perhaps.                                                        Something curling between her ribs, like smoke.

Mugs left half-full on the windowsill, books splayed open as if she'd abandoned them mid-thought. She liked to pretend the mess meant she was busy, brilliant,                                                      yet that thing kept reminding her of those lost hours of nothingness—                                      lighting candles at noon as if waiting for a storm that would never come,                                  hours spent watching the flame burn, slowly killing itself. As she was.

The walls were yellowed by time, or maybe by her own indecision.                                                It was poetic, pathetic.                                                                                                               It wasn't sadness. Just... something French. Something literary.                                              Something tragic enough to be from a book.                                                                            Something tragic enough to feel important.

Wake up early and brew yourself a coffee you'll never finish.                                                        Take the first bus, when it's still night outside.                                                                                Lock yourself away and work hard, then go to bed and wish for a sleep that'll never end—an escape from this inferno.                                                                                                          

But what happens when the sleep never comes and turns into hours of silence?                               When the coffee's too hot to taste before leaving? 

The days blur together in shades of gray—whispered conversations she can't quite catch, footsteps echoing down empty halls.

It was her constant fear of making too much noise in the university library that slowly led her to abandon the charms on her bags and belt.

And the day she realized no one really noticed unless you were being loud, she stopped putting effort into her clothes.                                                                                                              She cut her hair short again.                                                                                                      Her eyes began to wear that mourning gaze—the kind that shouldn't be found in someone so young.