Dear God of Coffee.
Sun salutation. Burnt bean.
I find you every morning.
while dreams dissolve into pillowthreads.
I find you in four scoops and two cups.
Without you I am nothing.
I am too religious.
I believe in too many things.
I am a zealot.
Your salvation has replaced others, dearest lord of dirt water.
I worshiped the God of Whisky with
twocountpoursbreatheouttiltspillbreathein
repeat.
The forest fire in my throat was proof.
Blood and thy body.
The old gods are dissipating
yet they are always present.
The old gods follow me to the meetings
like hungry ghosts in search of their old bodies.
At the meetings, I learn new
gestures and gesticulations.
Consider me a convert.
I know something is out there waiting to be believed in.
And we,
disparate clusters of atoms
need to believe something.
Dear God of Coffee,
without you
I am a tent without its poles;
collapsed space.
The sun rises and sets
against all odds
so often.
We wake up at least once a day
until we don’t.
Can you blame us?
Dear God of Coffee
I find you in tomorrow.
I find you at the meetings.
I find you in the relapse
until even relapse becomes ritual.
Dear God of Coffee,
we all have a different name for you.
For Darcy, you are the God of Cigarettes.
For Josh, you are the God of Sobriety Chips.
For Steven, you are The God of ER Visits.
We find you with clumsy motions.
This is how we build days
out of our collection of hours.
This is how we stack them on top of each other
until we can live inside of them.
Amen.
graypoetry 