The Table I Set Alone

A Love Story in Stillness, Surrender, and the Sacred Art of Waiting No More

woman siting on a table for 2 alone, rennissance era. so much food on her table

I sit at my table every day,

a quiet banquet laid out in devotion,

a buffet of offerings, my heart the main course.

I wait for love to arrive,

but each time, it sends a proxy in its place.

They come uninvited,

and they desecrate what I’ve prepared.

They scrawl their names across the linen,

they drink from every glass but never toast,

they kick the legs of my table

as if I owed them something for their intrusion.

Still, I wait.

I sweep the shards, I reset the cutlery,

I whisper hope into the folded napkins.

But then, I glance to the side and I see her:

a beautiful woman,serene and whole.

Her table stands quietly, the second chair long gone.

She no longer waits, and in her stillness,

she is free.

So today, with trembling hands,

I rise.

I circle my table,this altar I’ve bled on,

and I remove the other chair.

Alone now,

I begin the slow restoration:

smoothing the cloth, righting the plates,

repairing what’s been shattered

again and again.

There is no applause.

No sudden miracle.

Only a hush.

A lightness.

The first breath that doesn’t taste of waiting.

And perhaps, one day, when love is ready,

truly ready,

he will not send a messenger,

he will not demand a place at my table.

He will arrive, gently, without chaos,

bringing his own chair.

And he will sit because he wants to.

Not because he’s passing through.

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