At Twelve
When I was twelve, I learned how to make coffee before I learned how to properly sleep. My father liked his black. Bitter. No sugar. “Life is already sweet enough for lazy people,” he used to say. Back then, I thought all fathers sounded angry all the time. Every morning before school, I’d stand on a chair because I was too short to reach the stove properly. I’d make coffee while listening to my parents argue in the other room about bills, debt, and whose dreams had ruined the family first. Some kids woke up to cartoons. I woke up to survival. Years later, my mother confessed something to me while we were washing dishes together. She said, “I stayed because I thought broken love was still better than no love.” I didn’t answer her. Because I had already inherited the same curse. I fell in love with people who apologized without changing. People who hugged me after hurting me. People who knew I would forgive them. And I always did. One night, after another failed relationship, I came home carrying groceries and exhaustion at the same time. The apartment was dark except for the kitchen light I forgot to turn off that morning. I remember standing there silently, staring at the sink full of dishes. No dramatic breakdown. No screaming. Just this terrifying realization: My life had become a loop of taking care of everyone except myself. So I sat on the cold kitchen floor and cried harder than I ever had before. Not because somebody left. But because I finally understood how lonely I had become while trying to be needed by everyone. The next morning, I still made coffee. But this time, I added sugar. For the first time in years, I wanted something in my life to taste soft.