Some days, the steeping tea brown of your eyes
is my favorite color in a universe of variation.
These days, I try to recreate the effect
by starring into the depths of my steaming Kashmiri Chai.
I have the memory of your warmth in my core
while my tea grows cold and bitter by the last reluctant sip.
I used to hold you like this, with both hands,
or did you try to forget our perfect fit?
Oh, I was never your lover.
Just your nightly fix.
I know this.

I have a new ritual, these days.
Every morning I sit on my balcony above the double doors,
and drink my tea, thinking that I might have loved you
and missing the extra income.
I watch my nieghbors through their cycle of grey wool suits,
wave them off to work each day.
They call me Miss Tea,
and I smile the same smile I used to save for you,
the one that's supposed to be fake
but is altogether too deeply rooted in feeling.

06/26/2003

Author's Note: This was an asserted attempt to write erotica...I'm just not as capable as I used to be, or perhaps not as imaginative. So-and-so says I'm too much of a romantic to write dirty. I disagree on the grounds that I'm not really a romantic. I'm a pragmatist, a semi-cynic, and at worst an existentialist. So this never got to be as explicit as I was aiming for, it just turned out kinda bitter (big suprise)

Posted on 06/26/2003
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