The ice cream truck sang its tune but something seemed wrong. Tilted, not exactly wrong. Like listening to your favorite song in a minor key.
The man said we ran out of vanilla; somehow it seemed a prophecy.
Life sometimes works that way. You order your usual then they deliver something else, still unnamed, that makes your tongue perplexingly uncertain. Not bad. Not just the usual flavour.
My therapist sees it as development. I define it as betrayal by my own taste buds.
Once I understood my taste. Black coffee; simple connections. Conversations, surface-level and secure. Somewhere I then took a bite of something unexpected; now nothing tastes the same. Vanille feels like telling a lie right now. Simple now seems like hiding.
Not the typical flavour means you cannot go back. Your tongue has been corrupted—or awakened, depending on how generous you're feeling. You have tasted complexity; now the familiar feels like pretending, feels like a child's menu when you have already eaten at the grown-up table.
Some days I long for easy. Miss predictable. Miss the familiarity of the everyday.
Most days, though? Most days I'm grateful my tongue developed to want more.