Morning Coffee, Tokyo Station

Morning coffee

Tokyo Station

Life is meant to be lived

Watching the people pass by

All their different inimitable faces

Mistaking French kids 

for American backpackers

I met with friends last night

Sleep deprived

Prepared to down some good, strong Scotch

Smoke a cigarette

Have a laugh

And forget that painful state

Maybe I talked too much

Timing a bit off as a drunk insomniac

But laughs were had

Taboo topics slung around wildly

Hands on friends' shoulders

Their hands on mine

And even after all the slosh

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. in the hotel room

Only slept a few hours for the third day in a row

I prayed to some version of God in my head

jacked off

listened to some conspiracy videos

and somehow — some goddamn-how —

Fell asleep

Now an older woman walks by

in a super colorful patchwork pattern blouse

skinny with mousy, dyed reddish-black hair

I'm glad to be alive

drinking my coffee

The night's catharsis has left me lighter

If a bit uneasy about my loud mouth

And the balm of the morning air

and all the faces —

from the almost-horrified wide eyes of the 

exhausted British mom dragging her

giant luggage around

to the rude guy who stood right in front of me as I

sit here, inches from my face

And all the little kids in the strollers or this one, now, holding mom's hand shouting

tiny caveman "Ah!"s into the air

to get strangers to turn and look, both mom and son laughing hard when they do —

Have me feeling alright

Alive, even with all the commie bullshit

this dumb world plasters everywhere

over the top of the beauty