I pick out my tea bags,
Sometimes two or three,
Steep them in hot water,
Letting them be.

Then I sift through my cabinets,
Searching with care,
For the best little items
My chai might wear.

I’ve already made sweet foam
To crown her with flair,
Maybe she'd like brown sugar
To melt in her hair.

Honeyed lace drips down-
Her favorite sweet,
She pairs well with maple,
Cinnamon makes her complete.

Deciding how we’ll dress her,
A very indecisive time,
Should she wear caramel today,
Or vanilla to rhyme?

Perhaps she’ll indulge,
Mixing both with a grin-
A drink dressed in luxury,
My soft comfort within.

I’m not always the most creative,
But I’ve always been a little naive,
Choosing easier routes to healing,
Ones that kept me feeling unseen.

But I think I’m done with hiding now,
Done accepting life’s just pain,
So I’ll start drafting love from everything mundane,
Romanticizing quiet mornings and loud summer rain.

I’ll find poetry in coffee steam,
In the way the trees sway and sigh,
In cracked sidewalks blooming weeds,
And cotton candied evening skies.

Maybe, just maybe,
If I love each gentle, ordinary thing again,
I’ll find the pieces of myself I thought I’d lost,
And fall back in love with life,
Or at least treat it like a friend