The Difference
The texture is dry,
like running my tongue against wet sandpaper,
until the roll of the wet food balls up on my tongue.
Pushing it away,
I try to repress the internal gag.
This must be what it means to be older.
To lose the sensation of what should be an enjoyable small meal.
Only for it to make me regret everything that has to do with this texture.
The only reprieve is the sugar crunch of compressed dyed sugar in each bite.
I swore that my childhood made this taste much better.
I tried to cling onto that, to will the memory forward as if it might make the texture and flavor come into one.
And then I remembered something.
Recipes are a potion in themself.
A bottled flavor and texture that could either become the thing of nightmares,
or the thing of bliss.
And here I was, acknowledging how water in a recipe could never replace milk.
Just like oil is no substitute for butter, and that's all the difference.
It's what makes the cereal taste bland,
what makes the texture hard to blend.
And when I remember something tastes off,
I know it has everything to do with what was replaced.
What was changed.
What was lessened to a degree to cut corners and costs where need be.
We are all operating in different voids,
expressing our descent on the minor differences.
On the change of the layouts of aging stores.
Of the refresh of products that once started to mold.
To keep our eyes moving, or minds going.
For if they didn't, we'd break into a routine.
Of the dog walking the barn,
and when it was long gone,
we'd walk around instead of across it out of sheer memory.
There is the difference.
There is a sort of mold, that our body naturally molds to,
like we're meant to settle in as we get old.
Habits, tricks, tastes, and ticks.
We're all eventually settling in, to find our place within a shelf,
along a wall, maybe driving ourselves into a spiral of insanity
as if that might not be a stationary place just like them all.
We are no different.
But we are not all the same.
We are the taste of memories, of experiences one alongside another.
Twins, and singles. All the same.
But not.
We are not one.
But we are one in the same.
Human.
The experience.
The everlasting existence.
Imprinting on our tiny differences.
Until someone notices our impression.
Our difference.