Writers are supposed to dwell
Hunchbacked in the shadows
Hidden in the corners of coffee shops and cafés
Sipping our lattes with frightened lips
Observing with whimpering yet keen eyes
Out from under our faded fedoras
And thick yet quietly brimmed glasses
That mask our faces in mystery
While our minds swarm with melodious Jazz
And profound quotes from Aristotle
And romantic French phrases that flutter
In all their delicacy like butterflies
As our fingers with a slow tremor
Dance across keyboards or pages
And sometimes scraps of napkins
Stained with coffee and scribbles and tears,
Letting our thoughts trail behind us
So that their cloth-like fluidity rips,
Tears, is battered and broken until
They become fragmented and we must
Stitch them back together with our mighty pens
And we ponder the world,
The wonderfully whimsical world
And every last detail of that big, bold world
Through the air that is laced with cigar smoke
Sweet as it tickles the senses
And wafts into our blackened lungs
And although we sit in the shadows,
We radiate so very brightly with our
Clever words,
Clever words written from clever minds
By clever fingers that tap-tap like toes
And as our bodies slowly wither away
Our lives only begin to form on paper.
by Samantha Brodsky