Friday Love Poem: Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz!

(Doesn't she look superhot in this picture?)

For extra enjoyment, listen to the poem on IndieFeed! Ode to My Morning Cup of Coffee I buy you every morning at the same place. They know me there, and have the cup ready before I even approach the counter. Some days the subway acts up, and I run so late that I don’t have time to pick you up. We categorize those days as being “bad.” Life without you, coffee, wouldn’t be a life at all. It would be: a terrible fog, a slow-motion movie about the wind, the world’s driest muffin choked down with a paper cup of warm water. It would be me actually kicking a trashcan after yelling at a fax machine when the truth is I’m the one who keeps dialing the wrong number. I need you, coffee, and I don’t think that part of our relationship is unhealthy. It’s good to need things in your life and I need you, morning cup of coffee, I need you so much. You don’t even know. Look at me! Look at my eyes! Do you see how serious I am? Coffee, I would take a bullet for you. I would wear your burns like a badge of honor. I would punch a tea bag in the face, and not shed a single tear. CRISTIN O'KEEFE APTOWICZ is the author of five books of poetry (Dear Future Boyfriend, Hot Teen Slut, Working Class Represent, Oh, Terrible Youth and Everything is Everything) as well as the the author of the nonfiction book, Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, which Billy Collins wrote “leaves no doubt that the slam poetry scene has achieved legitimacy and taken its rightful place on the map of contemporary literature.” Born and raised in Philadelphia, Aptowicz moved to New York City at the age of 17. At age 19, she founded the three-time National Poetry Slam championship poetry series NYC-Urbana, which is still held weekly at the NYC’s famed Bowery Poetry Club. Aptowicz is currently serving as the 2010-2011 ArtsEdge Writer-In-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and was recently awarded a 2011 National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. For more information, please visit her website: www.aptowicz.com