Poisoned Coffee At Sunrise

The poem, the voice, and the burn , unfiltered, layered, and finally out in the open.

Artwork By Shain Parwiz

I am the antithesis.

Not the light. Not the lesson.

I don’t take the scenic route…

I take the shortcut through scars.

Everything you market as healing?

I see it for what it is.

A cash grab, wrapped in lavender.

A peace treaty, signed in pastel blood.

You wanna sing kumbaya?

Wrong altar. Wrong fire.

Come close and I’ll brand you

with my dead-eyed blaze.

If you could,

if you could,

if you really could-

see what I see behind my eyelids,

you’d run.

But me?

I pour it coffee and light its cigarette

I sit with it.

I let it speak.

Two ghosts.

One cup.

Coffee laced with poison.

We stir in silence,

toast to the burn,

and swallow the ache like gospel.

So don’t you dare think I don’t feel.

I feel.

Feral.

Furnaced.

Flooded.

But I’m no one’s fool.

Keep your crystals.

Miss me with your moonwater mantras.

I don’t manifest.

I manage.

I don’t heal.

I haunt.

I don’t climb out,

I dig in.

With my ghosts.

My counsel.

My compass.

My only company that never lies.

I’ll drink that poisoned coffee every dawn

if it means I can still see clearly

as the whole world

burns down around me.

If you could,

Only.

Could.

But you won’t.

Not like this.

Not at this temperature.

Author’s Note:

I wasn’t sure I should share this.

It’s my first attempt at recording a spoken word piece.
It was jarring. I felt exposed.
Weirdly, it was so much easier to record a full album with my old band.

So I leaned into the experimental.

Whispers, ghost layers, a reversed message at the end.
It’s raw. Messy in parts. A little cracked around the edges.

I’ll be dropping a clean version, just my voice, space, and silence. No theatrics. This Monday, June 30.

But this version?
This is what it feels like when you throw the supposed rules out the window.
Not knowing if the thing you made is going to land,
or just quietly explode in your own hands
and caves your chest in.

But either way, the first one is out of the way.
That, I’m thankful for.
The only way is to fail better.

-Shain

There’s more coming, spoken, written, and more.
I’m still figuring it all out. Appreciate you folks for staying with me, you guys are the reason that I am pushing my boundaries, and while it sometimes means being uncomfortable or insecure, I’ll keep going. Please consider subscribing if you haven’t already. Thank you