Bittersweet

Bitter, like chocolate, left to ferment and dry out so the essence becomes something else that is still not enough to be palatable, like bitter old women after a lifetime of fermenting small slights and cruelties that only increase with age and become visible when no sweetener has ever been added.

Sweet, like chocolate candy, the bitter beans sugared and mixed out of all likeness to their origins to something that is highly palatable, like Betty White, because sweet and funny old ladies are most acceptable, bearing no relation to their bitter counterparts.

Bittersweet, like the rest of us, a little dark, a little light, not to everyone’s taste and easily passed over in that middle age between new beans and Betty, wondering what we have to make of ourselves now to be palatable.