Tears at the Breakfast Table

He was only human,
Or what he told himself everyday
At the breakfast table,
A broken tape of comforting words
To recover the soul
He had lost

A cup of coffee
Along with six spoons of sugar,
Struggle to swallow pain
Only for the woman he once loved
To return it to him
Each long day

In his long life's struggles,
He had not tasted anything like
The rough and dry of toast
Or his throat built and clogged with his tears
Remind him of the loss,
Of his love.

His broken heart as messy
As the scrambled eggs before him
He absently stirs them
Only to realize he is not hungry
For anything but love
From his late wife

Hi,

I really enjoyed this. "He had not tasted anything like,
the rough, dry toast"
and
"His broken heart as messy
as the scrambled eggs before him"
are brilliant lines.

I'd cut the commas at the ends of the lines because you don't need them, except for after "human" "table" "sugar" "struggles" and "loss".

Hope this helps,

Jas

This is very good!

To return it to him
Without life.

This line, I think, is a little confusing. Because the poem itself (thus far) has been so linear, it's hard for me to pin the subject down here. The man? His wife? The pain? The toast? I might be inclined to change the very last bit to make it more in line with the rest of the stanza.

In his long life's struggles,
He had not tasted anything like
The rough and dry of toast

I do not dislike your imagery here, but I'm tangled. At first, we get the impression that this man is beaten down, weathered, but the contradiction here is a little strained and I can't quite get the meaning you meant to convey.

Also, as a more overall commentary, I thought this poem was leading us in another direction. It seemed to me that he was fighting with his wife, but that she was very much alive, returning to him his own pain and so on. The ending caught me a little off-guard.

In any case, this is very nice!!!