Lemonade

When life hands you lemons you already know the cliché. It gets tossed around by people who have never truly choked on the rind. It is the kind of optimism that belongs on a coffee mug or in the mouth of someone who never had to pawn their guitar to pay rent. The idea is simple, turn the sour into something sweet. Pretend your bruises are beauty marks, call it a lesson, keep smiling.

This year has been one relentless fruit stand. Lemons hurled at my head like fastballs, baskets of them dumped at my feet. I have squeezed every last drop until my hands burned. I have told myself it is vitamin C. I have tried to believe the sting was a cure. Still, 2025 has been the kind of year that makes even the strongest feel like collapsing on the kitchen floor. Every angle of life is sharp right now, political, personal, emotional, physical. The whole world looks like it has been sucker punched.

So fine. Bring it. Pelt me with your produce. I will juggle. I will bite into the pulp raw and grin with juice running down my chin. I will build a stand on the corner and sell it back to the world, one glass at a time, cold and cutting and exactly what we all need.

I am not afraid of sour. Sour wakes you up. Sour keeps you from falling asleep in your own excuses. Sweet is for people who need to be coddled. I will take my lemonade straight up, no sugar, gimme some bite. I like it.

I will keep drinking the lemonade until the glass is empty and my teeth ache. I’ll lick my lips after as the encore. It all tastes like life to me.