A Cup of Coffee for Me

 I did not grow up with tea or coffee. In our house, they were kept at a careful distance—almost like suspicious strangers. Maa never allowed them, afraid they would darken my skin, afraid they would leave a mark that could not be undone. So I grew up believing these drinks carried consequences far greater than taste.And yet, coffee found its way into my life anyway.During college, it became a quiet accomplice to my ambition. I drank it not for pleasure but for endurance—to keep my eyes open, my thoughts sharp, my body obedient to deadlines and dreams. Those cups were rushed, functional, almost mechanical. Coffee then was not a ritual; it was a necessity.Now, sitting in Abidjan, those days feel like a distant relative—someone I once knew closely but now meet only in memory. There are two different versions of me standing on either side of time. Two Poulamis shaped by different silences, different needs. But the coffee remains unchanged. In fact, it tastes better now—richer, fuller—as if time has allowed it to mature along with me.

After a long gap, I started drinking coffee again. Sometimes dark, like thoughts I no longer run away from. Sometimes softened with milk, when I need comfort. Sometimes sweetened, when the day feels too harsh to take plain. The first few cups were not pretty. They were messy, uneven, awkward—like hands relearning a forgotten skill.This first cup I made only for myself, after what feels like a decade, stood there quietly. Untidy. Imperfect. Almost embarrassed. But honest. Slowly, the cups are getting better. More balanced. More deliberate. And I see myself in them. Like me, they are learning structure without losing warmth, order without becoming rigid. They are following my footsteps—towards a life that is still soft, but no longer scattered. Life, I realise, is exactly like making coffee. Sometimes messy. Sometimes almost perfect. But never the same twice. The taste changes with mood, with patience, with the way the day has treated you. And that unpredictability is not a flaw—it is the point.

Yet, there is a version of myself I am learning to release. The unorganised one. The depressed one. The woman who cried over small wounds because she was already bleeding from somewhere deeper. The one who craved love like a famine craves rain. I do not want to be her anymore. I do not hate her—but I no longer wish to carry her weight.

Like a parachute cutting away excess baggage to rise higher, I have begun letting go. Old habits slip off. Old emotions loosen their grip. Feelings that once coiled around me like snakes from Medusa’s hair—heavy, inherited, frightening—are slowly falling away. They no longer petrify me. They no longer define me. I am lighter now. Still imperfect. Still healing. Still learning.

And beside me, a cup of coffee cools patiently—quietly witnessing my becoming.