coffee

i’ve always liked my coffee black
and i think it’s cus my mamma used to say
the bitterness was gonna make me a better person one day,
but she never said how.

i swallowed my pride, because
that’s what i learned
(because bitterness and pride usually go together.)

mamma told me being a pansy in school
doesn’t get you good grades.
and i took my coffee with me in my mug,
which was so unlike other students who preferred water.

And the one time i tried drinking water in school
some girl with hate in her eyes and a cross at her neck
spit the word holy at the bottle pressed to my lips
and it tasted like acid going down,
and i’m still not sure if she was cursing me or trying to save me,
but i do know she didnt get them all;
i’ve still got far too many demons inside me

i think that they’re all wrong though
because water is thicker than blood
and coffee is stronger than either
especially when the blood’s been thinned
by smoking too many cigarettes, because i
was never a good girl, and coffee always tasted better with smoke.

once i went to a trade fair and spilled all the cocoa beans
and didn’t cry because my mamma used to tell
me not to cry over spilled things,
even spilled blood.
spilled pride though-
that fell through the floor every day.

but they they don’t know and they never
will. coffee is just a metaphor for something
beyond myself that induces a feeling which indeed
a normal synapse might endure, but the possibility
of something more, pure or impure, and the choosing
of change, of not caring, of warning signs written loudly
on all the boxes we break. and keep breaking.

i’ve got stains in my heart, where
acid words and acid smiles dug razors
into my aorta. (holes and stains; stains and holes.)
they just won’t go away - i learned my lesson well mamma
i’ve got stains on my teeth now
and while those pansy’s that drank water
got their pearly whites,
my teeth have been dyed the color of pride.