Giving Up Coffee

In the gloom of a cold,
I gave up coffee.

Not like the first time
when I was shamed into drinking tea
and forced to fall in love
with English breakfast,
chai and ginger,
peppermint and Earl Gray,

but because my own body rejected the bitterness
and wanted to be soothed by that old trauma
and to sit quietly with the softness
like an old comfortable sweater.

I am home here in the steaming
and steeping in deep thoughts
of survival and learning to love myself.