Lemon Grass Tea

“You have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you, too far and they abandon you.” – Hanif Kureishi, Intimacy

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Title: Lemongrass Tea

Genre: Literary Fiction / Personal Narrative

Perspective: First Person Introspective

Voice: Nostalgic, poetic, stripped bare

Author: Jason Thomas aka Xxodia

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Inhale.

There’s a sound I hear before waking—a hush not born of silence, but absence. The kind that settles into the marrow when you’ve gone too long without being held. It finds me each morning before the world stirs: the aching stillness, the shallow breath, the soul flickering like a candle too exhausted to beg for air.

They say children bounce back. But no one talks about what happens when a child learns too early that even gravity can feel like abandonment.

I remember the first time I cried without tears. Just heaving—silent, primal. A grief so dry it stitched itself into the back of my throat. I was maybe eight. Or ten. Time had already begun to blur by then.

But I remember the tea.

Lemongrass—warm, forgiving. The kind only great-grandmothers know how to make.

She never asked what was wrong. Just placed the chipped ceramic cup into my palms and whispered, “This will help you remember where your heart lives.”

I didn’t understand her then. But I do now.

I sip it sometimes still—not because I believe in its healing, but because I believe in her.

And maybe that’s enough.

Now… open your eyes. Look toward the back of the room.

Do you see me?

I’m the one in the corner, cloaked in quiet sorrow. Not hiding—just… misplaced. Screaming without sound. My throat is raw from the effort, but no one hears.

It’s not that they don’t care. It’s that I’ve become invisible in plain sight.

I sit like a folded page in the middle of an unfinished story.

My clothes are black—not by fashion, but by declaration.

Not mourning a death, but a disappearing.

The hollowness inside me echoes louder than any conversation. My arms stretch forward—not for drama, but in a silent prayer to be seen. To be included in the world I can only observe.

If only they knew.

If only they could feel what it means to ache for connection while being swallowed by absence.

But the light never quite reaches me. Not fully. Not after the storms.

Some places stay damp long after the rain has passed.

Come closer.

No—closer than that.

I hope you’re not like the others.

The ones who drifted into my orbit, dazzled by the gravity, then panicked by the pull.

They mistook my depth for danger.

Mistook the truth of my love for something too wild to trust.

And when they drowned, they blamed the ocean for not being shallow enough.

But I am not a puddle.

I am tide and trench.

Still. Always moving.

If you choose to stay, know this:

My love runs deeper than ocean caverns. And only the sincere survive it.

Sit beside me.

Hold my hand—if you can. Let me memorize the shape of your presence. The rhythm of your breath, the architecture of your voice, the scent that proves you’re real and not imagined.

I want to feel you like sunlight on closed eyelids—quiet, and undeniable.

But I ask only one thing: patience.

My heart is not broken.

It is buried.

Somewhere in the wreckage of years I no longer speak of.

Hidden so well, even I’ve forgotten where it lies.

But if you are serious—if your soul speaks the language of endurance—then perhaps, together, we can go searching.

And if we find it…

You may keep the spoils.

Now—an offering.

Lemongrass tea.

It’s warm. Subtle.

It carries memories like quiet ghosts.

My great-grandmother would steep it during monsoon rains and funerals—when the world grew heavy and hearts cracked under their own weight.

She would pass me the cup, say nothing. But her eyes always said:

“This, too, is part of the healing.”

So take it.

Let it warm the cold corners of you. Let it remind you that even the lost have homes inside others.

Let it be our ritual.

Our communion.

Our way back.

There will be times when shadows return. When doubt drips through the cracks in our resolve. When we forget why we sat beside one another in the first place.

But for every ache, there is a remedy.

And sometimes, it is as simple as a shared cup of tea.

I know—

It sounds like too much for a simple tea party.

smiles

Forgive me.

I wear my depth like others wear perfume.

You may not notice it at first, but it lingers long after I’ve gone.

I’ve been burned before. Enough to know which touch heals and which leaves blisters.

So yes—I’m cautious.

My kindness is laced with carefulness.

My openness is a scar, not a door.

And yet—

Here you are.

Still sitting.

Still listening.

You want to see me?

Then watch—

not just with your eyes,

but with whatever part of you still remembers what it’s like to be unseen.

You’ll notice the flinches. The laughter that falters at the edges.

You’ll see the ghosts I carry in my posture, and the losses tucked between my pauses.

But nothing about me is accidental.

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Exhale.

The sky has turned ember.

Dusk leans against the window like an old friend. Our moment nears its end.

I wasn’t sure you’d come.

Still not sure you’re really here.

But maybe presence isn’t always a body.

Sometimes it’s just the soft weight of someone’s willingness to stay awhile.

I carry storms in my chest. My silence howls.

But you walked in—unafraid of the echoes.

And that alone changes everything.

Still, I won’t ask you to stay.

Not because I don’t want you to—

but because I’ve learned that love never needs to be begged.

If you return, I will be here—still sipping tea from chipped porcelain, still tracing shadows across the wall like constellations.

Still searching for the heart I buried long ago.

And if you never return…

That’s alright, too.

I’ve learned how to cradle my own hand in the dark.

You gave me something just by arriving.

A flicker of belief.

A sliver of morning.

Maybe that’s all I ever needed.

So go. Or stay. Or drift like stars do.

But carry this with you:

There is someone—

someone who once loved you in silence,

and meant every word of it.