Earl Grey with a Dash of Milk on the Side

March to September 2019

I asked for juice, you asked for tea.

Orange no ice. Early Grey

with a dash of milk on the side.

It’s what everyone does back home, apparently.

You emanate a drive to succeed.

Dreams of building your own company

somewhere in the region, where

leapfrog technology is key. Perhaps

Indonesia. Did you know,

in ASEAN, it has the largest Nominal GDP?

I don’t believe you but I’m proven otherwise.

You smile and claim your victory.

Your toothbrush sat on the right

and I stay over often.

You brew two steaming mugs of Earl Grey

with a dash of milk each night,

Decaffeinated and sent from your mother.

We start up the stairs together

slowly, our cups brimming with tea,

our hearts bursting with hope.

Your eyes gleam as heat spills

from our hands coating our bodies.

Joined together we soak in simmering passion,

Our dear friend, still warm, nurses us after.

An Early Grey with a dash of milk on the side please.

Let the tea steep, I hear you whisper,

I wait for half a minute.

Restless, I watch my tea turn foggy.

It smells like yours with a gentle fragrance,

It tastes like yours, a little bitter

sweet as it washes down quietly,

the milk softening the edges

Like you, two glimmering sapphires in the rough,

Like me, silk that cannot polish stone.

I don’t drink tea at your home now

But it is the one thing I always order.