by Rosana Garcia

2 creamers (amaretto, hazelnut, vanilla--whichever one I hate the least today),
a long pour of sugar, coffee to the top, quick stir. This is what I have time for,
these days--no espresso with milk, no fancy baristas foaming the top, no caramel
or mocha. No slow wake up at the kitchen table. Six-thirty am only means I'm
already running late. My journal lies fatally unopened for days. This is how dreams
die: first, falling into coma, then a slow, painful death, but I'm not planning a funeral
or preparing food for a wake. I'm a miracle worker on a schedule, but I've penciled
myself in for raising the dead. The journal will open, the words will flow (20 pages
of crap, 1 page of startling genius, a permanent ratio, a constant for a writer's
equation). My voice is only quiet, on sabbatical, on a journey who's return will be
heralded with the fantastic places we've been, without me. Somewhere in the deep
parts, a world is being built, characters are birthed, like Athena, fully formed, battle
ready, with convictions and opinions. I buy a bottle of water, a Harvest bar, beef
jerky, for the day and only want to return to the kitchen table, to the laptop
that has only seen work, not words, to the part of me that would never cut corners
or convince me that this shitty excuse for coffee will do. None of this will do.

(c) 2007 understar productions and Rosana Garcia