Chaos in a Coffee Cup

It isn’t work that drains me. It’s people. It’s their rambling. The pacing and repeating. The way thoughts turn into cars on a freeway once they start out loud. And I don’t like admitting that. But it’s true. It wears on something deeper than tired. Not muscles. But there is an ache in my back. Something that scratches at the door like a feral cat that won’t decide if it wants in or out. I know someone who talks sometimes like he’s trying to outrun his own thoughts. Circling the same ground and he’s digging himself a trench. Like a kid on a bicycle riding in circles without realizing he’s already been there a thousand times before. And I listen longer than I should. I always do. And I can feel it— that slow leak of something in me I don’t know how to fix, as I watch the serenity flitter away like a hummingbird. Not anger. Not love, either. Something in between. Like standing too long in one room with no open window. And I hate that I feel it at all. I know he’s just being himself. That’s the worst part. Because there’s no one to blame for something that ingrained. And afterward it feels like I’ve been somewhere loud without ever leaving the house, chaos in a coffee cup that settles in the pit of my stomach.

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Written by

thomas-w-case

59 / M / Clear Lake

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