the seriousness of coffee

time is measured

in cigarette ends

asleep in the ashtray

and in how many times

we reheat coffee

I do remember the schooldays

and how the days back then used to last longer.

months went by slowly after every other week,

melting into each other in long intervals of waiting,

a yearning to reach a life that seemed so distant.

We really thought the time would never come

and we dared pretend we did not care. maybe we didn't.

who would think you could look back at what you had

and still call it past. when it was present, you did not believe it-

and we all longed for a fast-way out to future, the morrow

we could never quite see coming.

I knew then that we would spend our days as we do

but I thought we would all be proud of it. we are not.

and now we wait for time to pass again

and for present to turn itself into something else. it cannot.

looking in the mirror, I recall what someone told me once: that

there is no future where there was never life-

so let it be life, and wait no more.