Monday afternoon.

Minutes crawling close to late lunch time.

Door opening, door closing.

I’m holding the cup close to my lips

Breaking the milky heart

Sip by sip

Until the foam is turned into a caramel color.

And I sit

And I write

Of you, you, you, of course.

The winter sunlight pierces through the window

Throwing long, diagonally shaped shadows on the opposite wall.

Twisting them, making everything bathe in the sepia filter

It’s almost too much to take in.

The smell of the freshly ground coffee beans

The casual “heys and byes,” blurring into a jazzy song in the background

And after all,

No matter what I wrote about you in my diary.

I feel my heart pounding

Cheeks warming and

the corners of my mouth slightly turning up.

I’m taking my gaze off the wall

and l look at the porcelain plate, the kind my grandma used to have in her house

Now empty, only crummies left around the edges.

And I realize I love every, single second of the now.

And when you feel that on a Monday afernoon

You know things aren’t too bad, after all.

Author: Sara Kärpänen

Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photo: Courtesy of the Author