Katherine's Coffeehouse

If I were a comma, would I opt for Oxford use? Would I find AP an ignorant Yahoo, mucking around in muddied sentences? Or would I merely slide from the tip of a pencil, smooth as poetry, and drop myself quietly before the “and”? Do you understand, now, what keeps me up at night? Not […]

When I look up, I see the wall in front of me, mirrored butterflies my daughter bought me, pressed against sheetrock and paint, covering punctures, the latest fluttering of fun decor and strange introspection. Do you know how it feels to see yourself in butterflies? #KatherinesCoffeehouse

What if this year you held your face in your own, warm hands, and said aloud, “You are shamelessly loved”? Would it make you repaint your bedroom, or file your jagged fingernails, or bang arrogant nails back into the deck, while you laugh like a five-year-old? Why are you crying? It’s just a resolution. #KatherinesCoffeehouse

Someone on Facebook said, “Bless and release.” I penned it on paper, a post-it note, purple, stamped with a teal -infused hummingbird, wings raised like praying hands, bearing my resentment like a god. Thank you. I can breathe now. #KatherinesCoffeehouse

Shifting paper, old handouts, a stack of dog-eared folders, blank, brittle notebooks, pile of unread mail and must-smelling memories, just dressing my desk the way mom did her counters. Must be hereditary. We sure are good at piling. #KatherinesCoffeehouse

1970’s ornaments, smell of pine, plastic, old cardboard, memories of my mom, leaking from the box. #KatherinesCoffeehouse

I was so jealous of you. You were that collectable champagne glass in my mirrored curio – gold-rimmed, slender stemmed, gleaming, overflowing with the stuff of celebration and wide-mouthed laughter, lipstick around the edges, the innocent intoxication of youth and beauty. But oh, so fragile. That’s all of us. RIP. #KatherinesCoffeehouse

When the day weighs more than I, and the sky hangs ominous as a loose chandelier, I find time to cocoon in a silent, dark room paneled with bland walls and tasteless paintings. Who the hell shoots old people just for being Jewish? I slide like mud, deeper into the sleeper couch. Next time, it […]

I used to dream my teeth fell out. I’d look down, and there, in a blue bucket, they sat, piled, pitiful remnants of my parents’ paychecks, gone to hell and the orthodontist.   Now they really are falling out, hanging on by a fleshy thread, some strange metaphor for life, and I feel bad – […]

Remember back – not too far back. Goalies didn’t wear masks. Bikers didn’t wear helmets. We rode in the back of station wagons, sometimes even in hatchbacks, no seat belts, or in the beds of pickups, nothing but wind and a tailgate holding us in. Those were dangerous times, they tell us. They had no […]