“Constructed Caffeine” by WITS Student Jessica Phan
November 8, 2021
………………….. I like to drink coffee on sweet-illed mornings
yet I don’t have an appetite f or time.
……… Both my ears and ey e s feel as though they
………………………………………..a re vacant and withered
Like a stranded ant in the hills that
………………………………..can’t su r vive without
………………………………………………….its colony.
There’s times where my hands would shiver as they run over my eyes
and then attempt to seal the sound around me
………………………………………but st i ll the only thing I can do
is hold my breath until the monotonou s bitter aroma of coffee
is the only thing I can taste as I try to stumble my gasp.
…………………………………………..Even so, it’s
…………………………………………………………… okay.
Jessica Phan wrote this poem while a student at Evergreen High School with WITS Writer-in-Residence Arianne True. Jessica read the poem to open for our Literary Arts Series event with Louise Erdrich on November 10, 2021.