johnnyfive

with the new year waxing like the full moon that rests under the cover of daylight come new beginnings; the turning of a new leaf. with all of the leaves abandoning their hosts, leaving them bare and stretching out to the winter sky with their veiny limbs, it's hard to find a leaf that is unturned. this is the story of a leaf that i found...
it was the last and longest hour of my shift at the coffeehouse when a girl i didn't really know but recognized came up to the counter. she was tall and slender with a blanket of youthful freckles across her nose. her almond shaped eyes widened and a giggle spilt from her smiling lips as she holds up a dainty finger, motioning me to "hang on a sec" and runs away. she's back in a few seconds with an archaic mug with vestigal brown coffee stains painting the inside of the vessel. minute cracks were visable just under the glaze of the mug making it look like a the dry, cracked mud of the mojave. she wanted the mug filled with coffee, simply coffee, which i found...nice and sat outside reading a comic and occasionally writing. as i was wiping down a table near we struck up a conversation and i found out she just graduated from state with a BA in english and german. english and german! the same things i studied in college, albeit i did not graduate. from there our conversation flowed ebbless like a monsooned nile and led us to dinner. over a garlic and spinach pizza we continued to engage each other and it was beautiful as far as the art of conversation goes; no one dominated the conversation and our interjections led to mostly agreeing with one another. i found her saying things i was about to say or things i had thought about oft. she was smart, funny, witty, concerned, yet not idealistic. she had the right mingling of realism and the desire to still be in awe of the wonderments of life. she was knowledgable about what she talked about and talked about issues and topics that i would talk about. in other words, it was perfect. and that's what dawned on me as i nibbled on the garlicky crust of a slice when a panic attack set it like a blitzkreig on poland. her words began to echo as my heart started palpitating and sweat began to cover my body like a fine morning dew. my stomach twisted into a knot and volunteered it's contents to the upper regions of my anatomy and i had to blink a lot to keep my eyes moist. hopefully this was all going on inside my body and mind all unbeknownst to her. i felt as if the dinner was tapering to an end, although she seemed willing to spend the rest of her evening with me. i opted to not rush anything and go home and freak out by myself, so i said i had to go home and walk my dog. we programmed each other's numbers into each other's cell phones and she gave me a tender and long hug.
by the time i got home i was a tumultuous mess. i immediately threw up and had the jitters for about an hour. but i was so very happy. a smile was stoic as bile spilt from it and my heart felt very full even though it was at a quickened pace. at the end of it all i sat in my bed and felt like the pressure inside of me was going to make me burst like the fat guy eating in that monty python movie. i wanted to have a girly friend to call up and scream "OH MY GOD I MET THE MOST AWESOMEST PERSON TODAY!!!" but i just sat there with the tobster chewing away at a mini dingo rawhide bone and boo curled up in my lap.
so i went to bed on a warm winter night with a smile on my lips and a fire in my chest. i slept good and couldn't remember a single dream. i woke up to the sound of leaves rustling like little twisters around the trunks of their former masters. all of the leaves spinning almost sound like the soft crashing waves of a distant sea. the strong memory of the girl i had just met flowed into my fresh consciousness like a mountain spring. her name is elif, pronounced like "a leaf".
the leaf that has fallen, unturned, before me could be a new beginning.