My brain has officially lost all sense of season. It woke up this morning and cried — genuinely cried, the way you cry when you remember a dream you can’t return to — because the fruity frozen cereal is gone. You know the one. The kind that tastes like a summer that never actually existed, only sweeter. The milk turns pink. The world feels briefly solvable. And then September arrives with its cold little hands and takes it away, and you’re left standing in the cereal aisle like a widow.
But here’s the thing: my brain is also laughing. Giggling, really. Because green tea is back. The ritual returns — the steam, the bitterness, the way it warms your hands around the cup like a confession. I missed it more than I admitted. Summer makes me drink iced things out of obligation. Autumn lets me drink things that hurt a little. That’s growth, probably.
And yet the weather. The weather still sucks ass. There’s no poetry for it. It’s just gray and damp and indecisive, like a person who can’t commit to ruining your day but does it anyway, slowly. I stood outside earlier and felt nothing. Not cold, not warm. Just ambient disappointment. I wanted to write a haiku about it but the syllables kept dying.
Oh, and while I’m here — why is green tea called green? It *is* green. That’s the part that unsettles me. Most names lie a little. Black tea isn’t black, it’s dark amber. White tea is practically beige. But green tea? It’s green. The liquid, the leaves, the whole thing. It’s the only honest beverage. And somehow that honesty makes me suspicious. Like, what are you hiding, green tea? Why are you the one thing that tells the truth? I don’t trust anything that matches its own description. It feels like a trap. Or maybe a mirror.
So yes. My brain is a small confused animal. It misses frozen cereal. It welcomes steamed leaves. It resents the sky. And it keeps asking questions no one asked it to ask. I’ll drink my tea anyway. Green, obviously.