I need coffee

I need coffee to make coffee

Especially in the interminable darkness that is the
get up in a cold house,
get ready for work
liminal half-awake space
of winter pre-dawn.

It’s in that space
that is neither morning nor night,
that place of not-awake but not asleep-ness
that I stumble into the kitchen.

It’s in that space
that I fill the kettle with water and put it on the stove to boil.

It’s in that space
that I pour the last of the whole coffee beans into the French press.

Groggy.

I lean my head against the wall by the stove
where the water begins to boil
and I wait.

Never realizing that the thing I want most right now
the steaming cup of freshly ground, Frenchly pressed coffee I desperately need
to bring me out of somnambulant kitchen wanderings and into the day
will never come.

Because just now I poured the boiling water over those whole beans and only saw it when I was about to press it down.

Dammit.

Did I mention I need coffee to make coffee?