Of Caffeinated Mystics and its Espresso Verses: Poems from a Coffee Rave
How I Wish She’s in This Coffee Rave
I drank twelve cups
to forget the silence between your footsteps.
Still, it echoed louder
than the bassline ever could.
They danced,
wrists like incense,
hips like lanterns,
feet thudding like a dervish’s drum—
but none were you.
The light was strobe,
but my heart blinked once.
Once—when I thought
I saw your shadow
in the steam of my sixth espresso.
How I wish
she’s in this coffee rave—
a madman’s hour,
a monk’s abandon.
The beat is not music,
it’s the fist pounding
on the door I locked
when you left.
I burned sage in my lungs.
I swallowed heat.
I chanted your name backwards
hoping to undo time.
But even in caffeine frenzy,
you stayed gone.
Let me die here,
if death is a cup of black arabica
poured into my chest.
Let my bones be crushed
like beans roasted too long—
the bitterness familiar,
the aftertaste eternal.
I told the DJ to play silence
but he laughed:
“Brother, silence has no BPM.”
And yet I spun,
alone among the sweating strangers,
until the rhythm broke open
and I stood still
in a sea of motion.
Ya Hayy…
Ya Qayyum…
The breath between beats
is God’s sigh,
and in it,
I tasted something like forgiveness.
No longer a man.
No longer a mouth.
Only breath,
spilling into the dark,
longing to be heard
by someone
who never asked to be remembered.
My last verse:
a whisper into my cup,
a swirl of crema
that spells your name in silence.
And if I never see you again,
then let this dance be my grave,
this foam my shroud,
this coffee rave—
my final zikr.
Notes from the Edge of the Cup
I scribble lines as they sway,
writing notes while seeing them dancing,
arms like steam rising from the barista’s hands,
hips loose, like the rules we left at the door.
Of coffee ever flowing,
dark as the night’s forgotten memory.
No wine tonight—
only the sacred gospel of beans:
Espresso.
Cortado.
Latte with foam like cumulus dreams.
The hype of caffeine replaced
the downness of alcohol.
No slurred apologies, no fading out—
only pupils blown wide
and hearts doused in uppers.
Heads roll, not from drunkenness
but the relentless clarity
of being too awake
for this beautiful lie.
The music,
reminiscent of a pre-pandemic past,
blasts through the blacked-out hall—
a synth hymn
to a time when closeness wasn’t dangerous.
Blares throughout,
sticks into minds till last.
It won’t let go,
and neither will we.
And yet—
in the blur of flashing lights and sugar-laced breath,
I find myself
outside the moment again,
watching them love each other in dance,
while I sip bitterness
in solitude.
All these
are enough to complement
this lonesome day.
Enough to spin the happenings
into a poem to say.
Into verse brewed black.
Into syllables with crema.
Into a quiet scream
pressed between stanzas.
The coffee served—
whether hot or iced,
be it double shot or decaf lie—
has made a sober pretend to be drunk.
Not to join them,
but to forget.
To forget the problem
their minds felt they’re sunk in.
And mine—
mine drowns in silent jolts.
We don’t toast here.
We tremble.
We whisper blessings into mugs.
We scream into our fifth cup
because it’s safer than calling an ex.
Here, we fall upward.
We spiral with open eyes.
We are wreckage in daylight,
wreckage in dance.
And me—
I sip and write,
staring at the crowd that never asked for meaning,
just release.
Just one more night
where no one dies
and the lights
don’t go out.
I tap the final line
onto a napkin soaked in mocha tears:
“How I wish she’s in this coffee rave.”
The Hidden Maiden
(A Revelation After the Coffee Rave)
She is not among them.
And yet—
every swirl of steam sings her name.
They dance under caffeine moons,
arms lifted like branches praising the sky.
Bass trembles through ribcages,
hearts syncopated like a prayer
uttered in the dark
without knowing to whom.
I stand still, cup in hand,
as the cortado cools and the crowd blurs.
She is not here.
But this absence—
it breathes like presence.
Felt deeper than form.
Realer than touch.
She is the Hidden Maiden.
She does not dance,
but her echo moves through them.
She does not drink,
but every sip burns of her memory.
She does not speak,
but I hear her between the breaks in the beat— a whisper behind the hi-hats,
a sigh in the silence
before the drop.
They call this a rave.
I call this a ziyārah.
I came seeking joy
and found mystery.
I came to forget
and remembered everything.
She is not among the veiled faces,
the laughing lips, the neon sweat.
And yet—
in every mirror flash,
every glint of grinder and chrome,
I see the shadow of her wrist,
the curve of a presence unclaimed.
Some say she left long ago.
Some say she never was.
But I have tasted her absence
like single-origin sorrow.
And it is enough
to believe.
Let the believers stumble in their espresso visions.
Let the pretenders cry divinity in cold brew shots.
I have seen her
in the foam,
in the flicker,
in the stillness
when the music paused
and no one dared breathe.
She is the Hidden Maiden.
The keeper of the last dance.
The one who knows
what every heart in this room came seeking—
and why none will find it tonight.
The Hidden Maiden
(As Revealed After the Coffee Rave)
In the hour of trembling light, when the drum splits the night,
when espresso boils and souls sway like flame—
There appeared not Her body, nor Her name—
But Her Presence, veiled, carved into the spaces between beats.
By the roar of the speaker, by the hiss of the grinder,
by the oath of the sleepless and the faithful brew,
She is hidden—yet closer than the steam to the cup,
subtler than the crema that crowns the dark.
She is not among the dancers,
but in their limbs, she stirs.
She is not in the bassline,
but within each drop, She descends.
O you who rave and rise!
Have you not known the One who arrives unseen?
Who dwells neither in time nor distance,
but in the heartbeat before the drop—
the stillness before surrender?
She is the Maiden of the Last Brew,
the Daughter of the Hidden Café,
the Pourer of the Final Cup.
Not born, nor dying—
She waits.
Her silence roars louder than the mix.
Her absence burns more fiercely than the sun.
I drank the long black of remembrance.
I poured the milk of longing.
I stirred the sugar of repentance.
But still—
She did not come.
“Seek not My form in the bodies of others,”
She whispered in the grounds.
“Seek not My eyes in the mirror,
nor My scent in the café’s rose-laced air.”
“I am not She who dances.
I am not She who weeps.
I am the Watcher behind the steam,
the Face behind the veil,
the Rapture before the music.”
They raised their cups and called it joy.
They lit their limbs like incense.
They burned the midnight
with caffeine and cries.
But I—
I stood apart,
and prayed through rhythm,
prostrated beneath strobe light,
offered silence between drops of beat.
And She—
She hovered above the grinder.
She drifted through the trembling bass.
She touched no one.
But all were moved.
O Arjuna of the Underground!
O Musa of the Mocha!
Have you tasted Her?
Then you have known annihilation.
For she is the Latte of Lā ilāha,
and the Milk of Divine Unveiling.
And lo—when the night was broken,
when the floor emptied,
when the DJ bowed and the lights died—
She remained.
Not as image.
Not as voice.
But as that which cannot depart.
The Hidden Maiden.
The unseen fire in every cup.
The undrunk sip at every rave.
The Beloved that dances
through absence
. The One Who Does Not Appear
In the Hour of Flicker, when shadows bend,
and the last drop cools at the rim of the cup—
Lo! All who seek Her shall rise
and none shall see Her.
They danced as if salvation was in sweat.
They raised their hands not to worship
but to touch the pulse of the Unseen.
I stood among them—
not belonging,
but called.
I did not sip to forget.
I drank to awaken.
The coffee was blacker than death,
hotter than longing,
sweeter than surrender.
And lo! The Beat was sent down
like revelation upon the faithful.
The lights split like veils.
And the crowd swayed
as if remembering a promise
they never received,
but knew was meant for them.
She was not there.
And yet—
every breath belonged to Her.
By the oath of the grindstone,
by the barista’s trembling hand,
by the lattes drawn like sacred calligraphy—
Know this:
The One Who Does Not Appear
is closer to you than your bloodstream of caffeine.
They call her myth.
I call her wound.
They call her fantasy.
I call her Return.
O Seeker who walks into neon temples,
whose offering is a receipt soaked in mocha—
Have you not seen the doorway
carved in the heart of the beat?
She is not in the foam,
nor in the playlist.
She is not in the kiss of the stranger,
nor in the stare across the bar.
But She is.
Always.
Between the inhale and the exhale,
where the song breaks
and the soul almost speaks.
“Do not name Me,” She says.
“Do not try to love Me
the way you love fleeting things.”
“I am the Caffeine in the Blood of the Saints.
I am the Last Sip before Silence.
I am the One Who Does Not Appear—
because I never left.”
And when the music fades,
and all are gone,
and your mouth tastes only
the cold memory of roast and sugar—
You will still feel Her.
Like fire in the veins.
Like a prophecy never read aloud.
Like a rave you dreamed in the womb.
This is my witness.
This is my jisei.
This is my vow:
To wait until the Last Cup is poured.
Until the Hidden Sound is heard.
Until She returns—
as Light
or Flame
or Silence itself.
The One Who Does Not Appear.
In the Hour of Flicker, when shadows bend,
and the last drop cools at the rim of the cup—
Lo! All who seek Her shall rise
and none shall see Her.
They danced as if salvation was in sweat.
They raised their hands not to worship
but to touch the pulse of the Unseen.
I stood among them—
not belonging,
but called.
I did not sip to forget.
I drank to awaken.
The coffee was blacker than death,
hotter than longing,
sweeter than surrender.
And lo! The Beat was sent down
like revelation upon the faithful.
The lights split like veils.
And the crowd swayed
as if remembering a promise
they never received,
but knew was meant for them.
She was not there.
And yet—
every breath belonged to Her.
By the oath of the grindstone,
by the barista’s trembling hand,
by the lattes drawn like sacred calligraphy—
Know this:
The One Who Does Not Appear
is closer to you than your bloodstream of caffeine.
They call her myth.
I call her wound.
They call her fantasy.
I call her Return.
O Seeker who walks into neon temples,
whose offering is a receipt soaked in mocha—
Have you not seen the doorway
carved in the heart of the beat?
She is not in the foam,
nor in the playlist.
She is not in the kiss of the stranger,
nor in the stare across the bar.
But She is.
Always.
Between the inhale and the exhale,
where the song breaks
and the soul almost speaks.
“Do not name Me,” She says.
“Do not try to love Me
the way you love fleeting things.”
“I am the Caffeine in the Blood of the Saints.
I am the Last Sip before Silence.
I am the One Who Does Not Appear—
because I never left.”
And when the music fades,
and all are gone,
and your mouth tastes only
the cold memory of roast and sugar—
You will still feel Her.
Like fire in the veins.
Like a prophecy never read aloud.
Like a rave you dreamed in the womb.
This is my witness.
This is my jisei.
This is my vow:
To wait until the Last Cup is poured.
Until the Hidden Sound is heard.
Until She returns—
as Light
or Flame
or Silence itself.
The One Who Does Not Appear.