Drinking Coffee (POEM)

Drinking Coffee
David S Nicholson

I sit here and drink my coffee. I look around and I see so many different faces with so many different lives. I think that would have been someone else, but by chance I am who I am now. The girl addicted to drugs selling her youth on the corner. The child who fears his father coming home. The young mother who spends hours looking at a razor and wondering. The thug who has never non peace or love. A trucker who has missed most of his children’s growth. The priest who hates in the name of a God who loves. But I am none of these. I am the watcher and I see it all and I see nothing. I am good at listening to you but I won’t remember. I have words to speak and you do not listen. Another sip of coffee then I move. A brush your shoulder on the way past. You look up at me but do not know me. Soon you will feel the chill of the grave. Soon you will be no more. I am death and I walk with you all your life. You will never know me but will come to me. All lives are a blink but I am forever. I whispered in the killer’s ear just before the trigger pull. I beckoned just before the thin red line on a mother’s wrist. I led you to the patch of ice on the road at night. These and countless more. I have no hate or love, but I do have time to wait. I work for all the Gods you have prayed to. I am there even if you don’t believe I am. Look away for a moment and I will take your child or you. Before men walked the earth and long after I will be.