Possible Clues:

• We are its ruin, so to speak
• A seated we are, in short, in a manner of speaking
• Like a poet about to forget lines
• We are shortly following a sit, in a manner of speaking
• Repeatedly left out, literary siblings are written about in not so many words
• It's perhaps, notwithstanding we re. in a manner of speaking
• Are we prepared to sit in for, so to speak?
• A location into which we run, so to speak
• Baffled head waiters had left like this
• Waiters worked with energy in a way