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Can I make us some coffee?

Can I make us some coffee?


Originally written and read live for Austin Bat Cave’s storytelling and fundraising event, “Mysterious Delicious.” ABC is a nonprofit that provides free writing programming to youth in Austin, Texas. You can support their youth here.


When I think of good people, like you good people, I think of my best friend Liana. I know you think your best friend is the best, but you’re wrong. Mine is.

Liana is the best goodest person because she’s practical yet a genius, she only listens to OK GO and K-pop, and she’s a Capricorn. If you think you know a better person, you can fight me. Challenge me to a eating contest, an arm wrestle, a dance off. My Liana is the bestest.



Perhaps the only thing Liana is not the best at is food, specifically coffee. When I met Liana, she was an overachieving English major who was in love with William Shakespeare and Karl Marx. I remember first seeing Liana when I was walking the halls of the English Deparment at the University of Oklahoma, and seeing this woman sitting straight up––her black hair in a bun high on her head, and wearing a white collared shirt, high waisted suit pants, and riding boots. She looked up and caught me looking in at her class, and wow, the bitchiness she gave off was 100! IT WAS STUPENDOUS. I just thought, “I have to be friends with her.” And a semester later we were in the same Shakespeare class.

Liana would always come into class with to-go coffee. I mean, we were undergrads, we all had a coffee addiction, but somehow Liana’s coffee habit was an aesthetic. You know people like that, right? Like if you don’t see their head tilting back every few minutes to guzzle down that black ambrosia then something is wrong. That was Liana. She was her coffee and her coffee was her.



In class, me and Liana became close friends. I think it was because we never really had weekend plans? Our main activity together was studying, making Vines while being high off caffeine and sugar, and then more studying. Liana definitely drank more coffee than me (and sometimes I was a trash person who would drink a Monster at 2 am), and depending on who was procrastinating the most would be the one to make a new pot of coffee.



One day, Liana and I were studying and writing our super important papers on Shakespeare through a feminist lens when she was out of coffee. Seeing how engrossed she was, I got up from the arm chair where I was perched and made her a new pot. Liana’s eyes didn’t even seem to register I had gotten up and left her living room. This is something I truly admire about her, though. Liana is someone who can hyperfocus on her work. When she is in the zone, there is no noise or visual movement that can distract her. Maybe I admire her for this because I find it hard to shut out the world. Over the years, she’s taught me some of her tricks: using white noise, a website with “coffee shop” sounds like lovely screeching espresso machines, and keeping your tabs organized on your browser.



Once we were in the final throes of writing our senior paper for another Shakespeare class and all of a sudden, I hear Liana scream from the other side of the couch. I stopped what I was doing and try to help her recover the 15 pages her computer cruelly deleted moments before. Liana, who never cries (I did say she was a Capricorn), was wailing as she screamed “No! No! It was so good!” And I believed her because Liana is good. I told you this already. When it comes to writing, though, she is actually the best writer I know.



But I’ve gotten far from why Liana is bad with coffee. During our senior year, Liana consumed more caffeine than ever. At her highest, she was drinking 9 cups a day. Her signature disposable coffee cups were replaced with a tall black thermos that she would constantly twist open and throw back.



When I spent time with Liana, I found myself being more productive. Perhaps it was the coffee, but there is only so much magic coffee beans can do. I reckon it was Liana. I would stay up all night with her writing papers and reading more in a few hours than I ever could alone. Liana’s influence was one of determination. If you spent a few hours around her, she would change your habits faster than the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by the now Netflix famous author, Marie Kondo. Sure, some of this was the caffeine making us clean compulsively, but part of it was working in solidarity with someone who doesn’t let anything distract her from her goals.



Upon writing with Liana towards the end of our last semester, we would often dream about where we would be going next and what we’d be doing. Liana is a poet, but she was following a more practical route: she was soon to be a master’s student at Syracuse University in the English department. She planned to focus in Medieval literature, of course. I was moving to Texas with family to take a year off. New York and Texas couldn’t be farther apart, or so it felt. We were going to be separated soon, and we had been near inseparable.



That day, Liana was taking a break from her academic paper because it was a beautiful spring afternoon. She opened her patio door and looked out over the other plain gray apartments, the blue streaks of swallows diving down and around corners, and her gaze landed on the trees. This is something else I admire about her. She can suppress her spontaneous side in favor of her rationality, but when it comes out, she shows me what savoring the moment looks like. So She laid in front of the open door and said “I’m going to write a poem about the trees.” Then she disappeared, as she often does, into the page.



It was then that I noticed she was low on her coffee, and knowing that she believed this to be the origin of her super powers, I got up to make her a fresh pot. I’ve actually written about this moment in a poem:



In that space


I see Liana on the black couch

knees to her chest

and journal between her

and the rest of the world.


I’m making her coffee

because she is writing.

I can tell she’s calling the sentences

down to her pen.

They are all too willing

–words love to be written

by Liana.


I’m a writer, too, but

right now I’m here for my friend.

The woman I saw sitting in an English classroom

with a perfect resting bitch face.

The woman who let me stay over at her apartment when

I couldn’t bear writing alone.


Being here is as simple as

scooping out coffee,

and Standing by the pot until

it’s finished brewing.

Here no one asks me to do anything

and I’m not made to feel like anything should be done.


I’m close to the aroma

and the steam and the fields of quiet inbetween her pen scratches.

Everything is still except for the swallows outside.

Liana is somewhere else– immersed.


I pour her a cup and

I set it down in front of her.

She doesn’t notice.

Her brown eyes are so focused

on the page where the pen drips

ink and genius.


5 or 10 minutes later

she smells the coffee and laughs.


“Is this for me?”


I drink, too, and think

about the warmth I felt

yesterday when I was the one brought

fresh coffee.


Then Liana reads to me.

And I’m not afraid of being worse or better than my friend.

I’m afraid I haven’t done enough to show her

how much her words mean to me.


Liana writes a poem for the trees

and I write a novel’s worth of

thank yous that my favorite writer

is my best friend.

I put no particular blame on any one person for forgetting to tell me about platonic love. I think in our culture, love is limited to family. Love is limited to husband/ wife/ partner. Boyfriends and girlfriends. So when I talk about how much I love Liana, some people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it. Is it romantic love? Is it an unrequited? No, it’s not romantic. No, it’s not unrequited. But if you believe in soulmates, you may know what I mean when I say Liana is my platonic soulmate. She’s always accepted me. She’s always known me. She knows I cry easily, that I just need to breathe when I’m angry, and I’m determined to write until the end of my days. I knew from the moment I saw her there was something there, something wonderful I had to know. And although we’ve both given up coffee, we still find ourselves gravitating towards the living room with mugs of the newest caffeine adjacent drink we’re trying together or wandering into a new coffee shops to simply sit and talk. We buy each other’s drinks and sit for hours talking about our grown up lives, our jobs, the world. It all comes together when I’m with Liana. And that’s love, even if we’re missing the coffee.


–Marilyse V. Figueroa




Marilyse V. Figueroa (she/they) is a proud queer femme and Xicanx-Boricua from Oklahoma and Tejas. She has been published in St. Sucia Zine, Acentos Review, and many others. She’s currently the Regional Program Manager for Austin Bat Cave, and the Director of the San Marcos, TX chapter of the Barrio Writers Workshop. Marilyse loves being a member of Lenguas Loc@s because it’s a rare and beautiful space to read, write, and discuss with a decolonized and open-minded group of amazing women, femmes, and nonbinary folx.


You can find her and Liana’s dorky photos on Marilyse’s Instagram, @unapologetic_scorpio


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