moleculesandmetaphors

[moleculesandmetaphors]

I’ve been drinking coffee for over a decade now. Growing up, coffee—and even chai—wasn’t something we were allowed at home. It was considered an adult thing, something reserved for after a certain age. So when I went to college, finally feeling grown-up, I began to explore the taste for myself.

I started with what I like to call “normal person coffee”—instant coffee mixed with sugar and milk. Sweet, warm, comforting. But as the semesters rolled by and exams took over, the sugar disappeared. Then the milk. Eventually, it was just hot water and instant coffee. Black, bitter, and strong—just like the all-nighters or the 3 am mornings I pulled to get through those years. For the longest time, black coffee became my constant. A symbol of focus, grit, and perhaps, a little hardness.

But in the last year or two, I’ve started adding milk again. A little more than usual. These days, it’s creamy. Sometimes I can’t even drink black coffee anymore—it feels too harsh, too bitter.

Last week I read something on internet that said people often stop drinking black coffee when they start being softer with themselves—when life becomes gentler. I didn’t give it much thought at the time. It felt like one of those poetic ideas people post to romanticize everyday things.

But today, as I stood in the office stirring my cup—creamy and light brown—I thought about it again. And I just stood there for a moment, looking at the color, realising how much has changed. How I have changed.

I didn’t consciously decide to step away from black coffee. It happened quietly. Slowly. Somewhere along the way, I started being gentler with myself. I let myself rest without guilt. I began setting boundaries, saying no, choosing peace. I started choosing softness, even in little things—like adding extra milk to my morning coffee.

There’s a quiet joy in moments like these. The joy of watching yourself become the person your younger self needed. The contentment of realizing you no longer need everything to be harsh or efficient to feel in control. That you can be kind to yourself in both big and small ways—from protecting your mental peace to giving yourself permission to enjoy a creamy cup of coffee.

Turns out, it’s not just about the coffee. It’s about softness. And how beautiful it can be to let yourself have it.

[moleculesandmetaphors]

I wouldn’t kill anyone for love, not even myself — most days I can barely get out of bed. So I make tea. I stand at the window while I wait. My feet are cold and the radio plays its little sounds. I do the small thing I know how to do to care for myself. I am trying to notice joy, which means survive. I do this all day, and then the next.

[moleculesandmetaphors]

I think to care for the self is a kind of prayer. It is a gesture of devotion toward what is not always beloved or believed.

[moleculesandmetaphors]

I must remind myself I am here, and do so by noticing myself: my feet are cold inside my socks, they touch the ground, my stomach churns, my heart stutters, in my hands I hold a warmth I make.

- excerpt from the poem tea by Leila chatti

[moleculesandmetaphors]

Because no one is here to love me, I make tea for myself and leave the radio playing.

- excerpt from the poem tea by Leila Chatii

[moleculesandmetaphors]

Five times a day, I make tea. I do this because I like the warmth in my hands, like the feeling of self-directed kindness. I’m not used to it— warmth and kindness, both—so I create my own when I can.

- excerpt from the poem tea by Leila Chatii

[moleculesandmetaphors]

And when you think about it, poets always want us to be moved by something, until in the end, you begin to suspect that a poet is someone who is moved by everything, who just stands in front of the world and weeps and laughs and laughs and weeps.

Mary Ruefle, from Madness, Rack, & Honey

[moleculesandmetaphors]

You Already Are Becoming

If you are pretending to be strong, then strength is already in you— where do you think the pretension comes from? A trembling hand still holds, a hesitant step still moves forward. If you are trying to love yourself, then love is already alive within you— where do you think the trying comes from? Even doubt cannot exist without a whisper of belief, even longing proves love is near. If you are searching for confidence, then you have already found its shadow. If you are reaching for hope, then hope has already reached for you. No one clings to light they do not sense, no one runs toward something they do not believe exists. If you are pushing through fear, then courage already breathes within you. If you are yearning for peace, then you have already tasted its quiet promise. A heart that forgives—even slowly— has already begun to let go. Wisdom is not the absence of questions, but the knowing that there are answers to seek. Happiness is not the absence of longing, but the proof that joy is still possible. You are not missing, nor broken, nor lacking— you are already becoming.

[moleculesandmetaphors]

As someone who works in science, I can’t even say ‘the heart wants what it wants’—because it’s not the heart, it’s the amygdala. Stupid humans, always blaming the heart for no reason. The poor heart is just a pump, minding its own business, while the brain is up there making terrible decisions and throwing emotions around like confetti. And yet, when things go wrong, it’s always ‘heartbreak’—never ‘amygdala failure.’

[moleculesandmetaphors]

Look at your wrist—see the bluish greenish veins? The blood flowing through them contains hemoglobin, a protein with four iron atoms incorporated into its structure. Iron can only be forged in the core of dying stars. The same goes for the calcium strengthening your bones and teeth, and the carbon forming the very backbone of your DNA. Every time you move, breathe, or simply exist, remember—you are built from, and kept alive by, the remnants of ancient stars. You are stardust, made conscious.

[moleculesandmetaphors]

In the book White Nights, which is 119 pages, Dostoevsky mentions Nastenka 145 times. And yet, we don’t even know the narrator’s name. He doesn’t have a name. Just “I.” That’s all we ever get. But Nastenka? Her name is everywhere—spoken, whispered, repeated like a lifeline. It’s like he’s trying to hold onto her by saying her name over and over, as if that could make her stay. It’s kind of heartbreaking when you think about it. He fades into the background of his own story, while she becomes the centre of everything. We know Nastenka’s dreams, her fears, the way she smiles, the way she cries. But him? He’s just there—watching, waiting, loving her in silence. As if he isn’t really someone, not in the way she is. He’s just a man in love, a man lost in a dream, a man who exists only in the spaces between the times he says Nastenka. And maybe that’s the point. He could be anyone. Anyone who’s ever loved someone who didn’t love them back. Anyone who’s ever spent long nights lost in something that was never really theirs to begin with.

[moleculesandmetaphors]

the worst part of "you'll understand when you're older" is that you really do understand when you're older

[moleculesandmetaphors]

Leo Tolstoy

“I am tormented by a feeling of guilt, by my own laziness. I want to work, but I cannot concentrate. The days pass, and I am no better than before.”

— diary entry dated March 5, 1855

“My thoughts are dark today. I think of war, of death, of how men justify cruelty. Yet, I also think of love, of its power to heal. Can one truly write about life without seeing both?”

— diary entry dated March 9, 1865

[moleculesandmetaphors]

Sylvia Plath

“I must control my overactive mind and learn patience. I want so much, too much, too quickly. I want to write stories that will outlast me.”

— diary entry dated March 16, 1953

“I am full of restless energy. The wind outside howls, as if it, too, is unsatisfied. I have so many ideas, but how do I shape them? I want to be brilliant, unforgettable—but what if I am merely ordinary?”

– diary entry dated March 18, 1958

[moleculesandmetaphors]

Franz Kafka

“How time flies; another week gone and I haven't written a word. My condition is despicable. I let my body rule me... I must escape this lethargy.”

— diary entry dated on March 21, 1911

“I am again unable to write, though thoughts swarm in my head like bees. I walk the streets at night, hoping something will loosen, but nothing does. Is this the life of a writer? To be always waiting for the moment when words will come?”

- diary entry dated March 25, 1912

[moleculesandmetaphors]

Virginia Woolf

“What a born melancholiac I am! The only way I keep afloat is by working... I foresee to write a book in three months. I shall write and write... I am haunted by the ghost of my own failure.”

— diary entry dated March 19, 1925

“I am not at all sure that I am a writer. I feel as though I am merely a woman who scribbles, occasionally producing something worthwhile. But oh, the joy of a good sentence, of a paragraph that flows! This is enough to keep me going.”

— diary entry dated March 26, 1921

[moleculesandmetaphors]

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his.

— Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest