Aurora Coffee: Euclid Mornings

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
My table was the wobbly one, out on the patio.
Always caught the morning sun.
Ten-thirty Euclid Avenue, nineteen ninety-six or seven.
I’d nurse a single cup for hours, watching the punks and the prophets drift past Sevananda.
The air was thick with dark roast, and the sweet, dusty smell of patchouli from the sidewalk.
It was my office, my church, my only living room.

[Chorus]
Just an Aurora morning.
Just a heavy, chipped ceramic mug.
The whole world held inside that little piece of Little Five.
Nothing ever had to happen.
And everything always did.

[Verse 2]
Jeff Clark would nod from behind the counter.
The baristas knew my name, and the book I was pretending to read.
On the burlap-covered walls, a new painting every Tuesday, a new crisis, a new love affair.
On the worn-out floral sofa, a poet I knew was sleeping it off.
We were all drafting our lives, fueled by the scream and hiss of that beautiful La Marzocco machine.

[Chorus]
Just an Aurora morning.
Just a heavy, chipped ceramic mug.
The whole world held inside that little piece of Little Five.
Nothing ever had to happen.
And everything always did.

[Bridge]
Then came a Tuesday morning.
July twelfth, two-thousand and eleven.
The air tasted wrong on the drive over.
Not of coffee, but of something sharp.
Of smoke and wet ash.
The fire trucks on Euclid were singing a final song I never wanted to learn.

[Outro]
I still drive by that corner.
And I swear I can see the ghosts at the wobbly tables.
Steam rising from a cup that isn't there anymore.
Just a phantom hiss from a machine long gone cold.