Kate Fortner
Too much coffee
Head screaming fingers tingling heart lurching stomach turning
Iced grande toasted white chocolate mocha
Fills my esophagus, stomach, and veins
Piles of whipped cream fluffy milky-pale
With red sprinkles
Little crunchy rubies of sugar
Teeth chattering mind shattering
Liquid energy off-white like pearls
Sugar shock ice block
Hands and lips going numb
In the January chill
Ode to Starbucks®
Green plastic straw (apologies to the planet)
Name in messy scrawl
Kate Cate Kat Paige Katie Kacy Casey Cathy Cait
Mobile pick up is god-sent
Only twenty minutes between classes
With grande pumpkin cream cold brew
All things are possible
One essay in four hours
Ninety-six points out of one hundred
On my way to class
Saw a girl in the elevator clutching
Large Dunkin’® iced coffee
About half gone
Iced coffee’s definitely the move
I say raising
Grande iced toasted white chocolate mocha
With milky-pale cream and sugar ruby sprinkles
Got a long day girl in the elevator explains
Got here at 9am not leaving until 8
Oof. Sounds like I got punched in the stomach
Good luck
She leaves—third floor
Godspeed, comrade in comrade in coffee, sister in Starbucks®
Headache brain-freeze caffeine withdrawal heart palpitations
Learned a song in middle school
C-O-F-F-E-E Coffee is not for me! Slaves to a coffee cup! They won’t give coffee up!
Weird thing to teach twelve-year-olds
Didn’t work anyway