The only thing I love more than a good dive bar is a shitty diner. I don’t know why. The tired small stained coffee cups, filled with straight up gasoline for the soul, the sugar shakers, old badly decorated tableware and chipped cutlery that used to be silver. The array of servers ranging from college dropouts to old timers who deserved to retire to some beach many years ago. I like the booths with ripped or torn leather seats and the variety of people who sit themselves upon the worn upholstery. I like the idea of ordering eggs regardless of the time of day and the triangular toast slotted into those metallic racks although I fucking hate pre-buttered bread, so I always avoided those diners for the ones that bring squares of butter on a saucer. Sometimes I wish I could paint myself into the walls and hide behind the black and white photographs hanging in antique picture frames and secretly eavesdrop on each conversation which unfolds, from the elderly couple sharing their morning pie or the worker having his early bird breakfast, the young couple attempting to feed their hangovers, or the late night crowd offering whatever high they’ve achieved some nourishment, as they intermittently stagger to the bathroom to shoot or sniff between bites, or where the AA fellowship laugh, like the pain they felt was a comedian trying to ease their heads. I like those 24/7 diners, like the ones I used to sip coffee into the early hours when I had no place to rest my head, the kind with bar counters where the authoritatively gentle lady holding the coffee pot would call me ‘honey’, ‘darling’ or ‘sweetie’ the kind of joint where you could peer into the kitchen and see the cook sweating over tickets or putting a cigarette to his lips as he prepared to take a break. I’ve had break-downs and make-outs, break-ups and make-ups, sour hello’s and joyful reunions, bitter goodbye’s and fond farewells. I don’t know why but I always felt comfortable in a diner, the shittier the better.

DINER

Filter coffee

Scrambled eggs

Sausage and beans

What does it mean?

The question begs

What does it mean?

To be seen

Ripping up an old magazine

Putting the pages

Under the table leg

I guess it means

The table leaned

What does it mean?

When the apple pie tastes like nutmeg

I suppose it means

There was too much responsibility

Her hanging all her hope on me

Like clothes hanging from a peg

Told her what I thought it all means

She poured the filter coffee

All over me as she went to leave

She kicked out the wonky table leg

I was covered from my head to my feet

Covered with my filter coffee

My sausage and beans

And my goddamn scrambled eggs