Oh f··k

So we walk into the coffee shop.

Both being tea drinkers, we sit at the mosaic-tiled table, looking down upon our pee-inducing gallons of boiling tea — simmering at the ideal temperature to permanently melt our mouth-innards.

It’s been a few months since we have seen each other.

The chit-chat begins:

Me: You see that drop coming out next week?

J: I peeped — don’t know how I feel about the color-way

Me: Same……

I know what I am going to say but I hold it back — all coy and shit. Rejection’s grip — suffocating the words from departing.

The ole nerves are acting up now. As an anxious Jew — I am all too familiar with the rising of tides in the ocean of my stomach — the acidic fumes wafting up my throat passage — as I try to refrain from ejecting whatever garbage-pronouncement is going to flop out my mouth.

I wish I didn’t eat that burrito for lunch.

I have to bring it up now — I am clearly making the face of one holding back a secret… or a fart.

I yearn to block this cascading avalanche of thoughts from dripping onto the table— but I cannot:

Will you start a company with me?