The Stereotype of Coffee Shops

Coffee shops are meant for the lonely

For here or to go? For here.

Those people are here for a purpose

Laptops, novels, phones, notebooks,

they’re the excuses for the people hiding behind cardboard coffee cups

Something about the whir of the grinder

the constant mumble of conversations

the soft indie music leads to self reflection’

Coffee shops are good for the lonely

Because people, typically, as a rule

don’t like to cry in public

But we can’t think of anything else

So we think about why we are lonely

But force ourselves to beat back the wave

of nostalgia and hopelessness that reduces us to tears

Feed ourselves just a small dose of it

just enough to contemplate the why and the how and the what for

You can’t cry in a coffee shop you tell yourself

So you breathe in the perfumed air in deep

You trap the hopelessness and confusion

in your cardboard coffee cup