Gritty coffee

Gritty coffee

ground too fine

Silt slipping through the mesh of my french press

each sip bitter and coarse

Coffee always smells better than it tastes

Or maybe I just don't know how to 

treat it right

You'd think after all these years

we would be in sync.

The blood running through my veins

connecting all the different parts of me,

Desperate for the caffeine to

enhance communication

Synapses, nerve endings

One hand frantically writing

the other running anxiously through my hair

Transferring nervousness to those around me

All these points of connection

Never synthesizing into one cohesive being

Always ground too fine

slipping through the mesh

Becoming a coarse bitterness in

someone else's mouth

I'm sure I smell better than I taste.

Reviews

[Dark_Duckling]

Nah, I'm sure you taste just as good as you smell.
It sounds like a situation where a person is afraid to be themselves because they will be just a mistake in everyone else's eyes. This anxiety is what they depend on but at the same time are held prisoner by. I really love the comparison to coffee in this poem and the attention to detail.

[lizardbrain]

you're not far off there... thanks for reading and i appreciate the feedback :)

[Gerald Parker]

There's some anxiety here in "Never synthesizing into one cohesive being" which would worry me if I had, a sense of being fragmented, unsure of oneself vis-a-vis others' perception of us. The dissaatisfaction with how you've turned out 'You'd think after all these years we would be in sync' is well expressed. If you dwell on it, it gets worse. Alternatively, just push it to one side, accept and b e happy,

[Chris Shaw]

I picked up here on feelings of dissatisfaction with self. Always ground too far, slipping through the net made me think of lack of substance, insignificant. I don't know whether that was your intention, but that's what came through. Good poem..

Chris

[Lorry]

I was going to say why finely ground tastes more bitter, but caught myself before going into teacher mode that no one wants to hear :)
Not to detract frpm the rest, but your end lines really do pack a punch. Sometimes the eagerness to communicate itself is the cause of jangling nerves, making us feel like a washing machine on spin cycle, or at least our stomaches. As an excessive talker, who goes through phases of never talking, I recognise the excesses of energy we need just to face the day sometimes. Being met with stony silence feels like rejection, but is it really, for someone who lacks even enough empathy for a moments kindness. They are no loss really, so why do we let them get to us so much?
Answers on a postcard, to the usual address, if you know the answer.
I'm liking these muchly.

[lizardbrain]

actually i'm really interested to know why finely ground tastes more bitter!! it could add to the depth of my poem something that i wasn't even aware of :)

[Lorry]

It's basically for the same reason grated cheese tastes stronger, there is more surface area, so therefore more to taste. Microground coffee usually is more
expensive too, but if you read the label,, its mostly 10% microgroud beans and 90% microgrounf instant. They don't mention that in adverts, do they :)

[lizardbrain]

thanks for the insight! I like the thought of more surface area = more to taste.. not necessarily being a good thing! especially when all you have is microground coffee and a french press, which don't really work well together....

[Lorry]

Yep, wrong coffee or maker doesn't work. A universal maker that takes all kinds, invent that and you'll be the next Bill Gates of Zcaffeine :)

[Rye]

Creative and cute really.

[lizardbrain]

thank you!