Coffee With Death

these poems are meditations on death, fate, insomnia, soma, illness, & the everyday struggle of a person who was born with a defective body. some are poetic diary entries & some are philosophical discussions with self. & they are important. not just because they pertain to the experience of a terminally ill, but the world in general.

we seek comfort in our soul, but if the body does not behave, if we feel uncomfortable in the container that we were given, what else can we do but write poems?

these poems are a way of letting go of certain emotions that the poet persona cannot let go of without accepting them. they are a way of accepting the self. the soma. they are intensely personal, so personal that everyone can find herself in them.

everyone can find a mirror in these poems & look deep into her, which is a soul without the body, trying to increase the length of a life which they know is a sickness.

we are all food for worms. & we don’t want that & yet, sitting by the shore of the death, a terminally ill nachi, whose name literally translates to ‘death’, seeks the very same- death, in these verses. to begin a new life. a new ray, these poems are. they are very passionate about death, about suicide, about the bodily pain because the poet person is a kidney transplant recipient, & is acutely sensitive. like everyone out there. but sans his mask. & that is the redeeming quality of these poems. they are without any masks. & they seek nothing. & that is why they are being made public.

to heal the poet. & any possible reader. & any healing requires a dip into the unknown, the known of the dense forest of sickness from whence that universal uneasiness emerges about which all poems speak.

the poet wants these poems to be soft comfortable blankets, where an ill, as well as not-so-ill, can rest & contemplate & untangle her mind. no one is not-ill anyway. to prepare for a new struggle ahead. because the struggle never ends. because we are all sitting by the shore of death. always. & that’s the only truth.

but there is no soul. there is only the body, which is an accident. & every accident is imperfect. these poems are about imperfections. about the hole we all carry. about the fire that is within us, that keeps us alive. these poems are not just about the so-called hope. they are also about death.

in fact, they are only about death. & we all are obsessed with death. aren’t we? death is the only fetish the world worships.

- Nachi Keta