black coffee without her.

a poem about the way by which grief has its grasp on all parts of me.

Photo by Richie Roberts on Unsplash

when i was seven years old,

my mom told me she liked her coffee black.

i thought it was whack

but then i realized it might just be a lack

of understanding on my part.

it tasted so bitter

but i put on a show

as though i liked it

on the downlow.

around the age of seventeen,

i acknowledged my initial

reaction was quite mean,

and up until my early twenties,

i started to love the taste of

unsweetened coffee beans.

i dont drink black coffee anymore

but it has nothing to do with the taste.

it’s more so the fact

that my mom’s no longer here

and black coffee without her

is not a reality

i’m ready to

face.