Let’s Have Coffee
A poem, a hope, a dream of liberation
Published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself April 2024
Welcome, please.
Take a seat in my sunroom.
Whatever you like, I’ll brew, bake, cook, make,
I can run to the store, in fact,
take my hand. Quick trip. Skip,
one step, one second away from
fresh baked cookies. Remember home?
Tea steeping, spout, and pour
your heart into my hands. Tell me
what brought you to my door. Though, you were always welcome, and
I don’t need to know, but I do.
Only if you need to tell: open,
blossom, and bloom with Spring — starting today, on your terms.
To you, I’m a stranger, sometimes an enemy,
but my home, my door, my hands are safer than those of whom you ran
from. And I was waiting. Frightened of waking up to a headline with your
name. Praying instead you’d run home.
And I’m sorry I don’t have a time machine, a lawyer, a gun, or an
explanation. I can offer a shovel and soil, and anything else
is yours. Everything within my power.
Because — did you know? — I have a savior complex and
you’re worthy of much more than the grace you beg for.
I’ll help you off your knees,
and cut the ropes. Melt into my couch,
breathe. Exist as you.
We can watch the movie you’ve wanted to see for
years. No need to look to the left before you,
cry,
laugh,
comment. Forget how to behave. Forget everything you had to do in the past.
Though, I understand it. I’ve done it.
Know this: to me, you are blameless. And to me, you are not my enemy.
And you were never quite a stranger.
So I’ll listen
without an agenda in mind or dagger in hand — a feeling foreign to you.
Mug in hand, I stare out my wide window at the sun and imagine you here,
hoping I’m wrong and you’re somewhere smiling, shining,
but mostly, hoping your knock interrupts my thought.
There's coffee in the pot.
You won’t show. Maybe not at my door, but I pray you seek another.
Because you are not home. Remember love?
So much distance created between you and it, but you can make it there.
Have coffee there. Bake cookies. Steep lavender tea, potpourri.
Light up like the sun as you pour,
everything, because they ask, they listen, and they care.
Bare minimums like a breath of fresh air. Inhale and
remember love. No conditions.
Remember home. No stipulations.
Remain there for the rest of your days,
or
what’s statistically more likely — because we’re not in a movie, though
I try to forget —
you’ll stay behind bars as somebody squanders away your radiant beams
living for nothing but the daily reminders to act grateful
for imaginary everythings—
You deserve to have it all, the real, the early alluring promises
discovered to be empty words—
and you’ll continue to stare out the window and wait for them to arrive
as I wait for you to wake up and wander away.
Welcome, please.
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