My Last Cup of Coffee

May 18, 2025

Hot, black, and free. That is how I ordered it. That’s how I drank it. I dispensed with the food. It wouldn’t make a difference, not this late in the game.

Yesterday, I had a choice. The Sheriff asked that I take the rope. It was cheaper for him. After all of the trouble I caused him, I am inclined to agree with his logic.

I raised the cup to my mouth. Whoever brewed this, brewed it from fresh grounds, not that second or third pass I so frequently encountered in the mining camps.

I miss those mining camps.

I must have been rambling. The Sheriff told me how ironic it was that I missed the only place I found freedom and then went off to kill Jacob Rutherson, losing my freedom.

Another sip.

I see the small wisp of vapor emanating from the surface. It carries the distinctive odor of the surface below. Ironic (what an interesting word to learn this late in my life) that the judge said the same thing about the smoke from the barrel of my Colt after I killed Rutherson.

In retrospect, even he was correct. I didn’t have to shoot. I might have kept my thoughts to myself and permitted his slander to pass quietly.

But, tigers do not change their stripes.

“Hurry up with the coffee. We have a full house to see you swing. You don’t want to disappoint the crowd.” The Sheriff was nice, but always on a schedule rivaling a train conductor’s.

For the first time in my miserable life, I gulped down the fiery contents. It burned, but tasted so good.

Considering what the noose would do to my neck, I wasn’t worried about requiring medical attention.

Oh! Hello there. You are coming home with me.

Kayla felt slight guilt as she knelt down and picked up the Philodendron piece from the floor of the home improvement store.

It's technically not stealing, right? I mean, scraps like this are just going to be swept up at closing time and tossed in the trash, right? What a waste. I'm actually rescuing it if you think about it. Yeah.

She carefully tucked the heart-shaped piece into her hoodie pocket.

On the drive home to her tiny apartment, she placed her passenger on the dashboard and excitedly brought her up to date on all things Kayla.

“…and I am soooo close to graduating. And when I do, I'm definitely gonna land a kick ass job somewhere — maybe even in one of these places,” She gestured upward toward the towering glass buildings as she drove through the medical center streets. “And you're coming with me, of course. You are going to have your very own spot on my desk!”

Kayla prattled on, feeling excited for the future and surprisingly, a lot less lonely all of a sudden. It felt good to speak her hopes and dreams out loud— even if only to a drooping leaf.

When they got home, Kayla placed her new roommate in a glass of water and set her on the kitchen window sill. She made a mental note to pick up some potting soil soon.

It will be so nice to have someone to talk to for a change. Now, she needs a name. Hmm…

Kayla smiled as it came to her.

“I hereby dub thee Philomena. For it is a strong name and a good name for a friend.”

Hiraeth

May 11, 2025

I cannot return from whence I came

The landscape that is lies fallow no more

From its former majesty springs

Concrete foundations

And asphalt drives

Pre-planned for buyers

With more dollars than sense

I yearn for the days of yesteryear

Where blue skies were blue

Running water took the monikers

Of crystal and clear

And silence, serene silence

Was the mean

And not an outlier

It was the last of the

Last of idyllic manors

A simpler time for simpler folk

Forsaking quantity over quality

I have my memories of its grandeur

I also have my memories of letting it go

A price I will eternally pay

You've grown up

We've grown apart

I remember

So clearly

The day

I became a mother

A status

That no matter

What happens

Can ever

Be relinquished

(No matter

What you say)

The experience

So different

Than my planning

Than my imaginings

But perfect

And beautiful

In its reality

And

Obviously

In

Outcome

Abacus

I miss you

I love you

My soul aches

To know

How you are

Every day

I need to be saved

From myself

It has always

Been this way

There are so many

Ways

To be saved

I was saved

The day

I became

A mother

I was saved

The day

You first smiled

Unprompted

Seven months old

At the elderly woman

In the doctor's office

In that moment

I saw

My heart

In yours

I was saved

Each time

You reached

For my hand

Each time

You laughed

Each time

You surprised me

With your uniqueness

I was saved

Each time

I realized

That you love me

Because,

While I

Can offer you

Unconditional

Love,

I continuously

Battle

With the notion

I

Am worthy

Of love

Even

From

My

Children

(Especially?)

So how

Can I be surprised

That you withhold it?

Regardless

You saved me

In small and large ways

Every day

Of your life

And

Even estranged

You continue

To do so

Because

I am saved

By the memories

I cherish

And so many of them

The most precious ones

Feature you

My first baby.

Tenderness does not dissolve.

A decade ago I told you I would stay. I would wait. I would come if you called, and no one could ever replace you.

I've said those same words a dozen times by now. But I never meant it like I do now. Like I feel them.

A tugging ache in my chest; a tether or a string humming from the roots of my hair to the skin of my teeth.

I look too quickly to the side and I am flash banged by your smile.

I haven't seen it in years. But I know it, bone deep like a sun burn.

You told me a decade ago you didn't want me to waste my life waiting.

Oh, but how is it a waste when it's you?

When I was made to love you, and to be the very thing you hated, too?

No, tenderness does not dissolve. It consumes itself until it is a hundred times the size.

And I hold it, like I'll hold you should you ever come back.

Bloodied, beaten and bruised, I would use my last breath to ask to hold you.

For I haven't earned the right, but I should like to try.

I think. I think hard. I think of the women I've met. Vaguely found attractive. Kissed. Dated. Thought of marrying and raising a family. I think of you.

I sip my drink, and its lemon is as bitter as the facts. You’re happy. You are in love. You won’t come back.

In my dreams you return. You’re not desperate and needy, which at a point was all I wanted in a relationship. Someone to control and to manipulate. But that is no longer me, and that is something you would hate me for.

You’re you. Strong, stubborn and confident. You come to me out of annoyance that I won’t leave your thoughts. Out of a need to make it stop. You hate taking to me. You never wanted to again. But talking to me is a reprieve you haven’t had in years. A release. You talk to me and you feel as safe and as unnerved as I always used to leave you. Safe because I’d never truly hurt you. Unnerved because I am constantly riding a wave of emotion that leaves you spinning on the spot trying to follow.

You like me. You hate me. It’s familiar and pleasant and discomforting.

But you’d have to disrespect yourself a little more. Hate yourself more, to speak to me again. You don’t. So I am a memory. A vague shadow that doesn’t draw or repel. Just exists as a thing in the very back of your mind like a task you don’t really have to do, but if you feel like it you can. Like cleaning a corner of a closet. I will collect dust; but it won’t ever matter. You won’t see it or think of it and it won’t inconvenience you.

How nice that must be, my personal poltergeist.

I sink down in the tub, letting the water soak into my hair like a sponge. I like the warmth, it feels like the good hugs I ever got and the hugs I never will.

It's dizzying, being in there. I can't tell if it's from the steam still in the room or my head, but either way it makes me feel flushed.

Maybe the bath bomb I threw in the tub adds to it, the scent of rosemary filling my lungs. I don't even think I like rosemary but it doesn't matter.

My eyes start to droop, looking automatically towards the orange bottle left on the sink. It's empty now.

I read once that your body won't let you drown in your sleep, that as soon as your nose goes underwater you'll pop right up, maybe a bit scared, but completely alive. I have a feeling that only applies when the person falling asleep is natural, not from a previously full bottle that should have stayed full.

It's when my eyelids touch and my nose is barely above water I regret it. That even if I wanted to go, it wasn't like that.

Usually that horrifying realization would be the end of the story, the person just feels regret and the urge to go back, but they can't.

But today, this time, I was able to go back because in my struggling, I kicked the drain plug out of it's socket, and the water started to sink around me.

I could breathe. I could scream, so I screamed.

The thing about never getting over anything in your life, is that eventually,

everything becomes a mass.

A mass of memories that hurt, that are nostalgic.

I can smell forty different perfumes, and they will each belong to someone different but belong to the same feeling.

Everyone I have loved and lost becomes an amalgamation with no specific person to tether my longing to.

And I am empty and chasing something that I miss but I can't remember..

Alone

April 30, 2025

Alone

All alone

I’m all alone

I want to be alone

I asked to be left alone

Forever alone

So alone, I am not even with myself

I sleep alone

I eat alone

I work alone

I am home alone

I am alone with my thoughts

I am alone in the dark

When I am letting well enough alone

I am better off alone

All by myself

Between my tears

Life’s arrears

Stand tall

As I duck down

In shame

Guilt

Loss

But what is

The future

Without

The past

What is

The past

Without you

Regrets

Are wishes

Dandelion seeds

Of truth

But purpose

Is here

And now

So what

Are we being told

In the wake

Of devastation

What is the wish

We fulfill

For her