Soft light and a midnight espresso

Nina Simone on the speakers, steam from a double espresso fogging the window. Reached for the bronze spoon in my pocket—its cool curve steadies the metronome in my chest while my pen sketches a skyline that still remembers the runways of my feet.

A man paused on the stoop below, collar up, the scent of cedar and old books; his glance felt like a rehearsal, deliberate and slow. That kind of punctuation makes new ideas bloom—already mapping the angle of his shoulder into a monogram, thinking in curves and held breaths.