tea leaves tea loves loves tea lives tea leaves tea? never.

Built from minimal words and near-anagrams, the piece turns “tea” into a pivot for a chain of transformations: leaves → loves → lives, then back to leaves. The shifting letters mimic how affection, habit, and identity can blur into one another—tea as something consumed, cherished, and lived with. The final question (“leaves tea?”) stages the possibility of quitting or departing, but the emphatic “never.” rejects it, suggesting devotion that is playful yet absolute. The poem’s meaning is carried less by narrative than by sound and visual pattern, making language itself the subject: how tiny changes in spelling can enact emotional escalation and commitment.