Trendy Coffee

In my last year of study

I became even more

Insufferable. I had ideas

about language

And kept nudging the chair

In my head, asking myself if the chair

was still a chair if the chair

Is no longer here or there

There were no chairs in the queue

For the coffee at the corner Cafe.

It was 2015 and the barista boys were hipsters

But because it was Dunedin

one still had dreads

One of the barista took to shouting out

My order. I felt, deeply, that when he hollered

Trendy Coffee! into the steamy bustle

His intent was to shame me

Trendy coffee!

Trendy coffee!

Eventually I gave in to my worst self

A saint driven mad by the devil of language

And with deeply held sensitivities so

one morning tea I got the barista

as he came out from behind the coffee machine

to the theatre of war known as the till.

I hissed or maybe shouted that I was here

for a coffee

not a motherfucking value judgement!

Motherfucker!

Motherfucker!

After this incident

My friend from the course, Linley

Who always said life is a journey

Had to ask for my Large Hazelnut Flat White

At the coffee place

Linley is correct

Life is a journey

But I could never go back.