📜 Mocha No Chocolate (Patreon)

I woke up ten minutes late but that’s perfectBecause the morning shift can never keep up with me anywayAnd I don’t need prep time, I am prep, I’m the main event, the headline,The girl with the foam on her fingers and the gloss on her name tagAnd if the first order’s wrong then it’s probably because they ordered it wrongAnd if the second one’s wrong then it’s definitely sabotage,And if the third one’s wrong then I’m rebranding the drink entirely,Give it a stupid name, call it experimental, say it’s a collab,Get reposted, blow up, go viral for being “real,”Because people like authenticity and I am as authentic as it gets—Burnt palms, crooked pours, espresso shots I forgot to tamp,And a milk jug I left out overnightBut no one’s said anything so I think it’s fine,It smells fine, I smell fine, I look amazingAnd I can do three things at onceAs long as none of them involve listening or measuring or math,And yes, I knocked over the syrup rack again,But that’s not my fault, the floor was slipperyBecause I spilled something earlier and forgot what it was and then stepped in it,But I turned the lights down and lit a candleSo now the store smells like ‘fuck-you vanilla’And everyone’s saying “this place has a vibe”And no one’s left a Yelp review under three stars since I started working here,Unless you count the one about the fire,Which wasn’t technically a fire,It was just steam and a little smoke and a lot of noiseBecause I microwaved a fork to see if the sparks would make a heart shape like they do in anime,And they didn’t,But it made me feel aliveAnd honestly isn’t that the point of coffee—To feel something, anything, everything, all at once,Especially when you’re me and you’re trying to froth almond milk with a broken whiskWhile flirting with someone who’s either a regular or a health inspector,I can’t remember,But I gave them a cake pop and called it “on the house”And they said thank you so I assume I did something right.I'm mocha—(no chocolate)I'm white rice, I got it.Babe, a mocha(No chocolate)It's Fuck-You—(Vanilla)Babe, I think I got itI’m the reason the rules existAnd the reason they get brokenAnd the reason no one follows themBecause I look too confident to question and too fast to fire and too pretty to retrainAnd if the receipts don’t add upIt’s probably because I’m using a different kind of math,Like emotional math,Like this latte feels like it cost seven dollarsSo maybe that’s what I chargedAnd if that’s a crime then lock me upWith a glitter phone and a playlist and no adult supervisionAnd I’ll still be the most profitable disaster you’ve ever seen,Because while you were in the back crying over a health code violationI was in the front accidentally inventing a seasonal drink trendBy spilling matcha on a chai and calling it “forest venom,”And now it’s selling out every morning before nineEven though it tastes like soap and earth and regret,But I make people feel brave when they order itAnd isn’t that more important than flavor?I make them feel seen,I make them feel chosen,I make them feel like I’m barely holding it together for them,And that is service,That is craft,That is a performance,And if the AC’s busted and the ice machine is leakingAnd the muffins are moldyThat’s not my faultBecause I wasn’t hired to fix things,I was hired to exist.There was a moment, I think,Where the blender exploded and someone screamedAnd I dropped the bag of espresso beansAnd it split open like a piñata for failuresBut instead of cleaning it up I just kicked the beans into a loose pileAnd built a sign that said “We do things differently here” in chalk markerAnd someone took a photo and tagged it #baristacoreAnd now there’s a girl with pink hair crying into her cardiganBecause she says this café “saved her life”And I don’t know what that meansBut I smiled and said “I get that a lot”And then the power went outBecause I’d plugged the space heater into the espresso machineFor reasons I’ve already forgottenAnd now we’re running on battery lanterns and good intentionsAnd maybe a little bit of fumesFrom the time I mistook sanitizer for syrupAnd added it to three lattes in a rowAnd then told the customers it was “an herbal clarifier”And they said it tasted weirdBut finished the whole cup anywayWhich just proves people want to believe in somethingAnd I give them that—I give them a disaster they can consume,Bad ideas they can drink,Failure that feels like a flirtationAnd smells like toasted sugarEven when it’s just scorched milk and cologne samplesI found in the lost and found and sprayed behind my earsLike a ritual before clock-in,Because if you smell confident and move fast enoughNo one will ever catch you thinking.I'm mocha—(no chocolate)I'm white rice, I got it.Babe, a mocha(No chocolate)It's Fuck-You—(Vanilla)Babe, I think I got itAnd if someday they put up a plaque with my name on itNext to the espresso barI hope they spell it wrong,I hope it’s smudged,I hope the letters melt under the heat lampAnd start to drip like syrup down the wallAnd the new hires ask what it meansAnd no one knows for sureBut they say she was a legendOr she was a problemOr she was just here all the timeAnd no one remembers how I left,They just remember that everything was louder when I was around,Like maybe the music turned itself upOr the milk frothed harderOr the air thickened with drama and sweetnessAnd something you couldn’t quite nameBut wanted to drink anyway,Even if it burned,Even if it broke your order,Because I did not know what I was doingAnd I still don’tAnd I never willAnd somehow that made me the best.