quartz street ➢ brad simpson [au]

seven

// brad //

Besides sulking in my seat with a steaming cup of coffee and a pair of oversized, heavily tinted sunglasses that covered half my face, I wrote.

I stole unused table napkins from the vacant seats in the coffee shop before leaving for my afternoon breaks and scribbled down my thoughts on the thin paper outside.

Most of the time, the things I wrote were about her: poems about the way she moved; short descriptions of her face; quotes that reminded me of her; a list of words that were synonymous to her petite figure.

Her lips that lacked makeup, just like the rest of her face, formed the tiniest smile as she read the green paperback on her lap.

The book’s spine was wrinkled and its corners were folded. It appeared old, the united pages looking brown from where I sat.

So old, you could almost smell the scent of old books that have been in bookshelves for too long, dusty and attacked by mothballs.

I wondered what words could she have been reading that would make her smile unconsciously.

Would she have smiled if she read my own words about her?