Last year, you were gracious
We sat attentively listening to your endless commentary
on the making of coffee and watched carefully as you used your two hundred dollar
coffee machine and grinder to munch up cooked beans and
make them into brown slightly oily bean juice
and so long as we were sufficiently impressed, we could partake.

This year, you gossip behind the scenes
approach people about what to do about me
drinking your coffee creamer, which is also special
and you stare at me with a look that seems to want
me to make your world flourish and grow and the sun to shine
on you every day and to renew your life with my heartfelt amazement
at your being
like a mother at her newborn child

And I am only trying to survive, and you have plenty of coffee creamer
so I can't even make it up to you, and I do not share your worry
that someday, you might open up the now crowded fridge and find nothing
I do not understand this kind of devastation
It seems petty and silly to someone like me who has woken up
to the blood and guts and body meat scattered around
her own life and had to scramble and fear and survive somehow

So when confronted, there's nothing I can do
but apologize, and I dissapoint again by not sharing things in common with you
and this angers you and you behave like an ignored child because I'm supposed
to share your world and interest and if not at least fake it because
that's what you need and I have the body of a mother
who is to give to the world who needs and needs
and that is supposed to be my job, my vocation
and my only wish in life

So I make my own bean juice and it's foul and rancid but I don't care
because the truth is, I never cared about your coffee
like a lover who is jaded and has given up, I was only faking it

so I noticed that we both drink coffee.
just like anyone, we both like ours a certain way.
i like mine sweeter, with just the aftertaste of coffee there.
caramel, sugar, creamer.
i think about when i’ll have my next cup, and the idea of it alone makes me happy.
i don’t care what time of day i have it, i almost always have a cup.
i make time for my coffee.
it might be safe to say i think you like your coffee black.
you might add just the smallest touch to soften its bitter taste, but never too much.
sometimes i think you just pour it and carry on, as though it’s nothing important at all.
as though all it is, is just some quick fix.
like you just want to get it over with.
we drink it in two different ways.
i drink it slowly.
i note every flavor in every sip, i enjoy it.
i note the warmth it brings me.
i like it all hours of the day.
you drink it quickly.
quicker than me, at least.
you don’t care if it burns your tongue, or perhaps you’re used to the pain.
you accept it.
you never let it last, you move on to something else soon after.
i lay in your bed, watching your eyes as they skim the screen in front of you.
your mind is somewhere else.
i savor the moments you look my way, if even for a second, and smile at me.
i wonder if you even notice them.
i feel your laugh vibrate my bones, making the hair on my arms stand on end.
do i make you feel at all?
i reflect on it every time i drink my coffee.
i think about it with each and every sip, taking my time.
something tells me that you don’t do the same.
after all, it's just coffee.
but i put my all into this coffee.
i think you like your coffee black.

round as the top of
tea cups, white as creamer in
coffee – ***** are sweet.