Coffee or Tea?

Coffee drips thick, dark as the hour before dawn,

steam rising like breath from lips parted in haste,

bitter against the tongue, sharp as a promise,

heat curling fast into the chest,

a pulse in the palm, a fire in the veins.

Tea sways in slow-moving spirals,

leaves unfolding like whispered secrets,

honey-gold light trapped in porcelain,

sweet at the edges, soft as an exhale,

the warmth of hands held long after touch.

Coffee is the clatter of cups on countertops,
the rush of shoes on wet pavement,
the hum of machines waking with the sun,
a love that burns, consumes, demands.

Tea is the hush between raindrops,
the pause before breath turns to word,
the creak of old wood settling into stillness,
a love that lingers, seeps, remains.

Coffee stains trembling fingers,
tattoos the lips with urgency,
presses its weight into bones that never settle,
a firework flaring, gone before morning.

Tea lingers, nostalgia
wraps itself around, a lullaby
fills the spaces where silence used to sit,
a candle flickering, steady and unafraid.

One tells you to run, one to stay.
Both warm, both linger, both necessary –

coffee or tea?