A Mug Full of Worry

Hi Hannah, so sad the story it is, its coffee break time, somehow coffee make us relieved and fonder each moment, it's cryptic that there might be a reason why someone has to be an alcoholic, it's either a vice or a get away to something. nice piece

WOW!
The imagery of this piece was mind-blowing!
This is such a heartbreaking poem; and something sadly people can relate to.

One minor critique:
Fourth stanza; line two;
I think it may sound a little better if 'blacked' became 'blackened' ...

Other than that, no dilemmas, flawless as always.

I read this in the club and thought it was one of the saddest poems I've read in a while. I like how you make use of imagery to deliver a very powerful message. This was a well-deserved win in the challenge, congrats :)

"The time on the coffee pot said 3:02 AM,
why does she still wait up for him?"

I like how you started this. It sets a melancholic tone. But I'm not too keen on the question since you were utilising imagery all throughout the piece and writing in third person. Adding a question kinda disrupted that. And anyway, making the reader think would be better, so I thought you should remove it, perhaps? But just a suggestion :)

"The smell of java waltz's through the house,
waiting for its dance partner to sneak
through the back door."

"Waltz's" should either be 'waltzes' or 'waltzed'. I like how you personified the smell of java. I love coffee. I got an imagery of steam coming from the coffee, dancing in the air. Breathtaking! I am a bit biased with poems with references to coffee, but yeah. ^_^

"Accusations race down the path of
unfaithfulness,
alongwith worry, confusion, and doubt,
it's an eight lane highway in the mind of an
alcoholic's wife."

I thought you could've used more imagery to show 'worry, confusion, and doubt' because they are too general and we all have different insights on those things. I wanted to know what the 'wife' has in mind about those things.

"Asshe hears jingling keys and stumbling
feet,
shestarts to brace herself for the wrath of
Jim Beam."

I like how you made this specific, with 'jim beam'. I thought it was a nice touch.

"Past scenarios start to repeat in her head,
thrown dishes, broken windows, and
blacked eyes,
she starts to wonder what type of chaos she
will endure tonight."

I would have preferred subtlety. The straightforwardness shifted the tone, throwing the reader a bucketful of negative emotions all so suddenly. I don't know if it works or not, but it did showcase the horrors of having an alcoholic husband. And it is fitting in terms of the context of the whole piece.

"The I'm sorries will do for now, only she
knows this is just his drunken cries."

This is really sad. But I don't think 'sorry' is a noun, and 'sorries' is a slang term of apologies. I did not quite like it. You could enclose the 'I'm sorries' in quotation marks though. Or rephrase it to: 'his/the apologies will do for now...'

"she puts her mug in the sink and turns out
the lights,
looks atthe coffee pot and whispers, "see
you tonight.""

Coffee is believed to make one sober, so the ending emphasised that the husband is an alcoholic while the wife is not.
It is sad to see those things happen, but sadly, it happens everyday. You really captured that sadness.

Great job and Keep writing!

This was an excellent write Hanna, I can relate, very few people in the World do not have a crutch of one thing or another. Alcohol is truly afflicting to Familys.
Peace and Blessings

Ah, I don't understand why people drink so much to the point of losing themselves to alcohol. They don't realized that they are not just affecting themselves but their families.

This was a well written piece, I like how you were able to describe the whole scene.