Coffee Culture

losing a chapter

three words can send my stomach
plunging towards my crumpling legs
which collapse into the nearest chair
while the rest of my limbs paralyse
as if a hypnotiser instructed me to

STOP

and my mind was forced to obey
to bow down to those three words
which stare at me with nonchalance
because a digital mainframe cannot
comprehend how shock has plucked away
my vocal cords and left me to gape
wordlessly at the monitor which says

FILE NOT FOUND

on the otherwise blank screen
which mimics my expression
mocking my disbelief
in sans serif script
as my mind begins to process
what had become of the hours
and hours and hours

AND HOURS

poured into these vivid fictions
stashed in the back of my memory
coated with a fine layer of dust
contained inside a cardboard box
which crumbles to grey matter
when my subconscious reaches out
retrieving remnants shelved between
stuffed toys and trips to disneyland

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

and not a single soul cares
except kings and peasants
and everyone in between
neatly erased from existence
with magnificent castles and forests
which never see the light of day
creations woven by my fingertips
and cast away without a thought

WHILE ONLOOKERS SHRUG

unable to sympathise
without realising that
it's getting harder
and harder
and harder
to write anything
to knit my emotions together
to conjure fantasies from thin air
and hot tears prick my eyes
as my heart gets pummeled
with the immense power
that those three words
hold over me.