January 22, 2003

coffee

I am bitter and hot, burning your mouth and causing that sweet part of your tongue to moan about your inattentiveness.

The fact that I am comforting on a cold day is a coincidence only, a consequence of me being out of my natural habitat. I was meant to burn more than the hot sun under which I grow, to cause bitter little burns on the tip of your tongue on the first sip, to cause your face to squint in like your eyes do.

But you cover me in whipped cream and carry me around like little hand warmers when it is bitterly cold outside. I am bitterly hot but you splash me with caramel and cinnamon, rock sugar and white mocha. That way when you sip me I am sweet and sour, cold and warm.

I am angy, quiet. Steaming in my own warm bath, brewing about the unfairness of the world. But my owners, my drinkers are perky loud people who are full of energy. I sustain them and they rely on me, only feeling like me when they can't have me at the very start of the morning, when the wind slices them to their core and their eyes squint and look out onto the world bitterly, another day.

January 22, 2003 04:28 AM