At some point 

     the tea tasted like what it was:

Water from the tap

Leaves from some Baisley burlap sack

grounds with lint

pills for a tasteless mouth

Craving cinema

Artistry

Thinking it all was

While you drink your tea

Some offshore light in a kitchen

At 10:00pm

And you’re back to coffee

Yes, the energy of a real soil

And you’ve ground your eyelashes 

To scratchy, briar thorns;

You feed yourself

Your keepsakes.

Living eternally in some

Closet, necklace, pocket or drawer

Someplace warm

That will stay just as so 

Until hands reach inside

And scoop you out

to tell the story

How you’d tell it

Despondent and removed

They read the veins and roots

And replant you

In a new pot of soil

You only hope they’ll tell of you

The way you remember yourself

Maybe if they make you a hero 

You’ll feel you are 

And if you don’t succeed, you’ll still be a story

A tragedy

But without them, you are them

You are what was and what wouldn’t be

You are what people expected to drink

And ends up tasting

Like tea