Better Coffee, a Fully-Realized Poem

I maintained myself a stranger to
you, the woman I preferred. Whenever
you asked about myself, I’d remember
the potential of loss. Worst of all,
would be if I lost you in a way where
everything was my fault. After bathing
in those fears, I’d punish myself
with bitter coffee. I really should have stopped counting
my comeuppances, the direct results of my shortcomings,
and my attempts at getting better without really trying.

Worst of all was that I forgot to count the times where
you sought me just to talk—where we were sailed
conversations amidst restrained tensions. That lead
to places and we explored the locales like young adults
do together on a Friday night. Drinking.

In a memory, I once imbibed your saccharine air
of stolen lips where I tried reviving the delight
once thought mutually stirred—
      where upon our first encounter,
      there in my house, white rum
      won against reason, and
      attempted romance lost
      to unexpected motions—
      vivid enough where you
      never forgot me. Yet even then,
      my advances were respectably,
      excpectedly defeated by
      your want of platonicism.
      A state where we’ll all
      just be friends for now.

Against you reviving your affections later,
unexpectedly, was me bearing shields speaking
nothing profound about me. In between the night
we met and our restarted sparks, was my learned
avoidance of risk. The greatest variable
opposing us was not compatibility. It was,
instead, me—my dubious prowess and the terror
of losing you and that being my fault.

These anxieties wore us down enough to begin the
doubting. My anxieties, weighed on my soul,
learned from the terror of fires, and
possessed by Cross-borne guilt, lead to
the classic looking back at the edge of
Hades. And I was Orpheus. I can’t blame
you. Despite the fruit of time and
      retrospect, I rather not
      exonerate myself just yet.

Still, these lamentations aren’t
exciting in the adventurous sort of way.
Danger was evidently not in any of my names, something
      you might have already crossed out on a list.

Though you’re worth certainly hoping for, coveting doesn’t
suit me. Maybe I would love better if we had made it.
Fortunately, I made off with this:
      I am at least now someone who,
      unlike that self in that one nightmare
      after a day or two of forgetting my medicine,
      now has better coffee.