“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.
Posted in Literary Arts Series Student Writing Writers in the Schools 2021/22 Season