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40 Days of Living Like a Poet, Day 5: When the Coffee Steam Looked Like Ghosts
40 days of living like a poet
It took longer for you to embrace the ritual. The morning coffee, the sweet and bitter, and if you’re paying attention, more sweet than necessary. It took longer for you to do much of anything, and there are days when how far you seem to be behind haunts you. An unknown future pulls you forward, but instead of leaving achievements, you leave drag marks. It’s not that you want to resist a full-speed-ahead approach; you just want to know what you are getting yourself into before you leap.
And the coffee? The heat that rises and wafts through the air? It doesn’t have a destination or goal in mind. It is a ghost without gumption, a haunting that you must endure every morning, through amusement and anxiety. These ghosts come and go, happy to have frightened you, but not patient enough to stick around for the outcome.
Maybe in the wintertime, it’s a full possession with the steam rising to meet your nose, inhale and wind its way inside, settling deep in your chest. And continue to haunt it will, every morning, every season, every year until the ghosts tell you what you need to hear.
