Poetry by Nikki Bausch

                            ​Matt Anderson CC



Caffeine Crash Chaos

You continue to lament, 
“I know I met Edgar last week.”
When he was Filip,
When he had Hashish (don’t need that). 
On a greasy, concrete staircase, 
Where you wake up in dreams, 
And you don’t know where you are. 
                      “I didn’t ask for this,” you say,  
                      “I am a good barista.” 
                      Finding out they brought you back
                      Makes you feel nothing. 
                      “I’ve forgotten how to write the Stories
                      My own stories. 
                      I need a day off.” 
                                                     Always the Muse, 
                                                     But never the Artist. 
                                                     “I wish Masaryk would have written me back. 
                                                     Fuck. This Ouija Board is defective.” 
                                                     The world owes you nothing. “Duh.  
                                                     But without this, 
                                                     I will never have closure. 
                                                                                  I cannot sleep and I am cold.” 
                                                                                  Would you rather be a dancer or a fetish model? 
                                                                                  It hits you, like a semi. 
                                                                                  They said you got a bump to your head.
                                                                                  “It’s been so long since I’ve been to the café.” 
                                                                                  You’ve only had coffee today. 
                                                                                  “I know, and I’m crashing.”

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Nikki Bausch is from St. Louis, Missouri. She was pursuing a Masters in German studies at the University of Vienna. However, she has had to prioritize other things because of the pandemic. She is a visual artist and her written works have appeared in UM--St. Louis's Litmag, The Honest Ulsterman, Perhappened, and elsewhere. She also writes in German, and does translations of Czech texts to English. 

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