coffee sick

i always wondered why you believed
i would come to hate you
and here i am
a bitter blackness slipping
down my throat.
you know coffee kills my stomach
but i don’t hate coffee.
it isn’t the pain that makes me grimace
or the shit that comes out an hour later
i love the smell of coffee
how you wake me in the morning
without trying
without any cream
or sugar.
beautiful things
don’t ask to be held.
when the coffee is ready
i hold the cup and enjoy its temporary
warmth.

i never did go to the lake.

i wonder if letting go
means you must rely on your body again
to overcome a feeling that is no longer love,
but becomes so over time.

maybe i like coffee because it kills something else
and what dies each time
and refuses to remain dead is what makes us
genuine people.

i saw a father so deep in sorrow
i cried for this stranger
that is not a stranger.

i don’t need alcohol to stumble
into bed at night or drugs to lose my mind.
i am sick enough to stumble
and sick enough to lose my mind already.

i was born sick
and i grew sick
and i am still sick.

and in sickness i live
as though the caged dogs bark
and their voice is not heard
but adopted in the shape of their eyes
before they are laid to rest.

death is a sleeping beauty.
i hold my breath.