Sugar – Day Sixteen of NaPoWriMo

A piece of my father’s philosophy, I’d like to share.

He said, “Life is a balance of everything, just like the sugar and milk in your coffee,

Too much of either can ruin it completely.”

Maybe that’s what we were,

A coffee with too much milk and sugar.

But now that’s it’s all said and done,

Let’s go down memory lane one by one

I’m nostalgia hidden in every hour of the clock

So sit tight, hope your coffee’s alright, and let’s mull over the memories we both lost.

2am, I’m the nostalgic scent on your faded grey hoodie back when you were pressed against me in an attempt to keep me warm.

When the clock strikes 3, hope you dig out with tee that I accidentally stained with coffee because you were leaning in for a kiss.

The hour strikes at 4, I remember your shaky breath when you told me you can’t do this anymore, that the sugar in your coffee turned toxic.

It’s 5:25, your hands feel cold when it’s not wrapped in mine, and suddenly you want to try us again, one last time.

But now it’s 6 o clock, you see silhouettes of us dancing on the sidewalk, my lips, your lips, entangled in your curly coffee-brown locks.

It’s 7:04, you see flashbacks of us eating cheap takeout on the kitchen floor, you say bad jokes, I say bad poetry, we stare at each other cause we’re too different to be together.

It was half past eight, when I told you it was better to go our separate ways, than to hold on to something that wasn’t there anymore.

It was 9:23, when you sighed heavily and agreed, letting go of the memories we had jammed in between coffee packets, sugar and cream.

Written by Shreemoyee Roychoudhury for MTTN

Artwork by Bhagarbi Mukherjee for MTTN