Coffee

Coffee is a lie
Coffee is a lie you tell to your body that you got a full night of sleep
Coffee is a way you fool your mind that you're fully awake
Coffee is the sugar coated white lie.

You know it's not really true, just like white mochas aren't really white,
but brown.

You know the low comes after the high,
that the high will bring you low.

Coffee is the sugar that makes your stomach ache,
and want for more.

A Marriage to the Rope Maker's Daughter

Her father held her hand very delicately, as if he feared her fingers shattering into a million pieces. She worried that her little hands would press his gnarled fingers too hard and they would dissolve. Even then his hands rattled.

" 'm not 'fraid, sweetie. Neither sh'd ye be." He looked down at her with warm, if not worried eyes.

" 'm not afraid, Daddy. But where 're you goin'?"

Her father sighed, rubbing his leathered face tiredly as he searched the wall behind her for an answer. Finally, he smiled as his eyes found hers. "At dawn 'm gonna marry the rope maker's daughter"

She beamed, nearly jumping from the floor. "I've always want'd a mum." "What she like?"

He chewed his lip a little. "She's quite frightening, just like her father."

"Can I meet her?" She sat up a little, touching his face.

Her father shook his head sadly. "Not yet. I really wish I c'd bring ye to the weddin', but it's too scary fer little girls."

"But Daddy, 'm brave."

"Promise me ye won' go. Promise." His eyes searched hers this time, as if he were looking for an anchor.

_____________________________

Like many promises a little girl makes, she broke this one. She hardly slept that night, pacing around her room, eyeing the fort impatiently. Knowing her father, he would try to have an extravagant wedding. Usually that would mean renting the Governor's courtyard, but some reason her father and the governor didn't get along so well. He would have to have it at the fort, where the whole town could see.

She raced outside as the sun reluctantly rose over the eastern coast. Before that yellow coin finished rising over the water, the girl was hiding in the skirts of some woman in the crowd around the platform. She had a hard time spotting him, but she eventually found her father on top of the platform with a rope around his neck. The girl couldn't find a daughter anywhere on the platform, only the scary man in the black hood, and some sort of judge. Even the words of the man on the far end of the platform were hard to hear over the crowd's murmuring.

Yet the sound of trapdoor falling down cut right through.

To Mrs. McGinnis

You look like a sponge squeezed.
That breath you carry around every
other moment probably weighs
a lifetime more than before.
I know if you could,
You would shoot light straight into your father's heart,
or create a sunbeam that would take your children straight to their grandfather.

You might feel like you're fighting a battle
Against a enemy you're not sure of.
Heaven is the highest victory,
a tower higher than the clouds.
I wish I could say you could climb up
such a tall ladder with your armor on,
your shield and sword in hand,
but they'll only weigh you down.

A Drive Down Kuebler Boulevard

I see flowers and a cross on the side of the road.
Why isn't there a flower and a cross my mom's hospital room?
Why aren't there flowers streaming
down the halls,
down the walls,
for the people the doctors couldn't save,
who they wouldn't save?

A Love Song to Stumptown at 1 AM

Who would've thought,
that your best words were said when you were half-asleep.
I heard your bridges sigh
as my car's exhaust passed along the edges
Your streets laid bare,
no people to clothe them
Your sky-scraped office lights embraced me,
and kept me warm.
Your streetlights whispered through the glass,
and I could feel your breath through the vents
We spoke different languages,
but I think you said
"I miss you already."
I crept back home,
lost,
and raptured.

Death of the Author

A team of investigators arrived at the scene, Polaroid cameras and airtight evidence baglets in hand. They split up, two men on the left and the woman on the right. One man snapped pictures, leaning closely over the body.

The coroner poked one cold arm. "She's in near-perfect condition."

"Like the court will care about that." The man with the camera rolled his eyes.

"Hey now, she's of some worth." The woman carefully gathered samples with gloves fitted tightly around her hands.

"Ha, they only care what they can get out of her. She's not really even evidence. It's the samples and pictures they want." The camera man leaned over the body's head, snapping close ups of the untouched face.

"What killed her?" The woman paused to glance at the coroner.

"Oh, well, it looks like she served her purpose. The publisher had no further use of her, so they must have poisoned her water supply. But that's just a preliminary guess."

"They do that?" The woman failed to resume, her jaw dropping an inch. "That's...a lot of dead authors."

"Oh, she'll wake up sooner or later. The jury will need a book out of her." The camera man stood up, finished with gathering pictures.