The Teaspoon’s Complaint
by Henry Bladon
I sit here, glinting like I matter, beside a chipped saucer and a smear of jam, ignored yet again. The mug got the lips; the sugar got the praise. No one bothers to thank the stirrer. No one says: you brought the sweetness home. I’ve tasted the whirl of storms in a builder’s brew, I’ve scraped the silence from the bottom of lonely cups, reflected the half-face of a man who didn’t want to go to work. They think I don’t feel the clink of teeth, or the burn of rushed mornings. They think I’m just metal. But I know routine like a prayer. I know grief when it hides in a third coffee. Tomorrow, I might disappear behind the fridge. Let them stir their days with pens and desperation. Let them miss me. Just once.
Henry is a poet, writer and mental health essayist based in Somerset. He has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Birmingham. His latest poetry collection was Poetland, published by Impspired.
Coffee Time, acrylic on board. Click image to enlarge.