Oh Coffee, I loate you...

This is my ode to coffee.

My ode to a really, horribly sour deep brown that I used to spit out and cringe at the smell. My ode to adding in far too much sugar, natural and raw, and too much almond milk and still making the cringe when I sip through my cup.

I can drink tea plain, but not you, Coffee, no not you. You are too strong for my head, you cause swelling and pain and frustration. You smell so delicious after the flavors and sugars and creams that I feel delighted, enticed by you. But that the end of the day, you remain the same. A now milky brown liquid that has the same, devastating effect on me.

I sip you from my royal blue cup and inhale your intoxication. I swim in the magic of your caffeinated dreams for just a moment. I perk up because of you, get more intense with my words, seeking and soaking in your wisdom. It isn't you that motivates me, but it is me consuming you that keeps me going.

So my ode to you, coffee, and your horrible nature, your deadly grasp on my brain. I wish I could quit, sometimes, because of what happens to my sleep.

Sleep, my ode to sleep, my ode to dreams, my odes...

My night is spent tossing and turning, awake and yearning for the sweet caress of the sandman. I awake not once, not twice, but three times from dreams, small bumps in the night, and I'm alert. A switch got flicked on in my brain and it swells with thoughts mixed with dreams. I cannot tell if I am awake or sleeping until I realize I've been wide-awake the whole time. Eyes open, glazed over, transported to another place. Another moment where the demons come out, haunted by your touch. You've awoken them, you have, with that claw you wrap around my dreams.

Oh, Coffee, why is our relationship so tumultuous? The interesting, shadowy nightmares, the desire for more vivid an imagination, a more un-tapped deeper, darker place. You bring me there. My writer's eye is so fascinated, but my soul is shivering, alone in the corner, begging the writer to drink tea again. Stop with the coffee, she says. The writer waves her away, no, we need to see where this rabbit hole goes. And we drop further down, mixing our dreams with reality until the very essence of both are lost, wrapped up together, as one.

Yes, Coffee, I do hate you, even though I still drink you. The dreams you give me are horribly frightening, but the creative switch that it triggers is greatly enlightening.

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I know this technically isn't poetry, but I couldn't think of a better main category to stick it into. I find that this would probably be better named "slam poetry" or something of that nature. No, it isn't traditional, but yes, I am a writer, and I can break the rules (sometimes).