No Phones At The Dinner Table

i think i've spent a lot of my life

trying to find the right words

for things i was never taught how to say.

so i write them down.

the things that keep me up at night,
the conversations i replay on the way home,
the people i miss while they're still here,
the versions of myself i haven't quite learned

how to love yet.

i write about growing up,
about growing apart,
about wanting to be known
without having to explain every little thing
that made me who i am.

i write about the strange loneliness
of having so much love to give
and never knowing where to put it.

somewhere along the way,
we learned to look down
when we didn't know what to say.

we filled the silence with screens,
the empty spaces with noise,
and the pauses between us
with anything that wasn't the truth.

but i still think there's something beautiful
about a table full of people
who put everything down
long enough to listen.

maybe that's what i'm trying to do here.

set the phone aside.
pull up a chair.
tell the truth, even when my voice shakes.

i don't have all the answers.
i'm still learning how to live with myself,
how to hold the people i love
without being afraid of losing them,
how to sit with the silence
without mistaking it for abandonment.

but i'm here.

and if you've ever felt like
you were the only person in the room
who couldn't quite explain what was wrong,
if you've ever loved someone so much
that you forgot to leave a little love for yourself,
if you've ever wished someone would ask
and really mean it when they said,
how are you?

there's a seat for you here.

i can't promise i'll always know what to say.

but i'll try to tell the truth.

and maybe, for a little while,
neither of us will have to feel
so alone at the table.