Coffee Stains

Coffee stains with empty ashtrays and the smell of regret.
They look up and smile, asking where I’ve been.
So I tell them that I sailed away on an adventure,
And ruled throughout the seven seas. I join them,

They throw me the paper, and I sit in the same old
Chair that engulfed me for many years. The boy was only ten,
Yet they blamed the man who stole my heart
And locked me here, for I was his Rapunzel

But he was not my prince, and he never fixed that clock.
It still hung like a nasty reminder on the smoke-stained walls,
Ticking away to rhythm fast becoming my beating heart.
That pulsated around the room, echoing rumours of the past.

I could no longer sit, so I stood at the window, watching back
As my younger self was struck against the cold hard floor.
In the name of love, her frail bones were shattered.
She looked up at me, and that’s when I knew

“It was him,” I said, and left the room – but not completely,
For the girl had taken part of my soul, and I too was back there
With her, and we found solace in those dark discard abysses of ash,
Surrounding the blasphemous coloured water they like to call coffee.