(sorry in advance, my grammar is questionable and I've been told I overuse metaphors and run ons. It's particularly bad when I'm writing stream of thought pieces.)

Today I noticed the lingering taste of coffee in my mouth. It’s gross.

I remember in college when I first started drinking coffee, I thought it was disgusting. I’d buy a coffee, only drink half of it, and then chew gum for at least an hour to get rid of the aftertaste. Then a friend introduced me to dessert lattes, specifically turtles. A coffee filled with chocolate syrup and caramel. It’s more sugar than coffee. I’m thankful my younger self had a fast metabolism and could burn it off walking between classes. I did eventually realize that my addiction was a problem both to my health and my bank account, so I settled for cheap Dunkin’ Donuts coffee that tasted like burnt, watered down, disappointment, with a shot of expired artificial vanilla. No sugar. I convinced myself it was an acceptable replacement and ignored the burning disgust with every sip.

Now, years later I’m sitting here, the familiar pink and orange logo mocking me. Another unfinished coffee, another stick of gum, another lie I keep telling myself. Why did I want this so badly? The after taste is still as gross as my very first sip years ago. Yet still I drink it every day, like it’s a medical necessity.

A truth: I prefer tea. On the rare day that I skip coffee I might drink 2-3 cups of tea instead. On those days I think of my grandma. Her doctor told her to drink 6 cups of water a day so she drinks 6 cups of tea. I tell everyone that’s why they can’t get blood out of her anymore, it's just tea in her veins. Let’s pretend it’s that and not her age combined with tea's diuretic nature. Though living to be 100 should give her some kind of medical exemption. I take a sip of my second cup and think one more won’t hurt.

I smile when I drink tea. I think of her kitchen, sitting with my back to the shiny green tiled wall covered in coloringbook pages we'd scribbled on before we knew how to hold pencils, the summer air blowing in through the screen door, uncomfortably hot for most but comfortable for us. We share the same genetic curse, a cold to the bone feeling that only goes away in the summer or after a hot cup of tea. She sets down two steaming mugs, the same ones we use every week (okay that part is an embellishment, we didn’t have specific mugs but only because her mugs were all the same. I'd like to think if she had special mugs, we'd each have our own), and we talk about everything and nothing.

I cringe when I drink coffee, I think of fluorescent lights, white walls, metal chairs scraping across tiled floors, a two hour long PowerPoint about a topic I’ll forget in a few weeks. Yet, I’ll still wait in line at Dunkin’, still drink the iced cup of disappointment like it will cure something inside of me. As I pull out a stick of gum, I think of that famous scene from The Devil Wears Prada.
“Don’t be ridiculous Andrea. Everybody wants this.”