Scientific Commentary On Coffee
Valerie Braylovskiy
I am writing this in a coffee shop,
drinking a cup of coffee, struggling to
begin my personal critique on our
foolish obsession with the very object
I sip.
I already feel my neurons
disobeying their ruler.
They live in a drug cartel owned
by Adenosine. Let’s pretend
she is a
powerful goddess who, by chance, also
enforces our sleep.
Neurons are her soldiers,
imaginary friends who
keep me alive and
what do I repay them with?
Coffee.
That damn cup of Joe
reprimands my friends,
disrupts their loyalty
to Adenosine.
I’m the one who got you fired,
I’m sorry!
Today, my cup of Bali Blue Moon roast
takes a subcortical road trip,
stopping in the hypothalamus
to pick up dopamine and serotonin.
We worship
neurotransmitters.
Sitting in a coffee shop, I interrupt
my writing to
experimentally prove this
Theory of Worship.
Figure 1: Middle-aged Nancy grips
a vanilla latte in one hand,
self-worth in the other!
Infidelity and binge eating is washed away
to the neglected ventral region of
her brain.
Figure 2: Young and bankrupt Doug
chugs an espresso like his daily Budweiser,
suddenly his cerebral entropy
runs instead of walks, sprinting to
finish a 10 page
Ph.D. paper
on
“Caffeine Effects in Mice.”
Now my central nervous system is
at the highest speed
and I can’t stop sipping.
and writing.
and sipping.
“Can I get a refill?”
drinking a cup of coffee, struggling to
begin my personal critique on our
foolish obsession with the very object
I sip.
I already feel my neurons
disobeying their ruler.
They live in a drug cartel owned
by Adenosine. Let’s pretend
she is a
powerful goddess who, by chance, also
enforces our sleep.
Neurons are her soldiers,
imaginary friends who
keep me alive and
what do I repay them with?
Coffee.
That damn cup of Joe
reprimands my friends,
disrupts their loyalty
to Adenosine.
I’m the one who got you fired,
I’m sorry!
Today, my cup of Bali Blue Moon roast
takes a subcortical road trip,
stopping in the hypothalamus
to pick up dopamine and serotonin.
We worship
neurotransmitters.
Sitting in a coffee shop, I interrupt
my writing to
experimentally prove this
Theory of Worship.
Figure 1: Middle-aged Nancy grips
a vanilla latte in one hand,
self-worth in the other!
Infidelity and binge eating is washed away
to the neglected ventral region of
her brain.
Figure 2: Young and bankrupt Doug
chugs an espresso like his daily Budweiser,
suddenly his cerebral entropy
runs instead of walks, sprinting to
finish a 10 page
Ph.D. paper
on
“Caffeine Effects in Mice.”
Now my central nervous system is
at the highest speed
and I can’t stop sipping.
and writing.
and sipping.
“Can I get a refill?”
Valerie Braylovskiy (PO '25) is a poet from San Francisco, California.