The kitchen is empty now,
its warmth gone cold,
the table scattered with the wreckage
of plates, crumpled napkins,
a wine glass tipped on its side
like a tired apology.
I sit by the window,
watching the last scraps of daylight
sink into the blackened trees.
The neighbors’ porch light flickers,
an echo of laughter still clinging to the air
like the faint smell of roasting turkey.
We said grace earlier,
but no one spoke the word we meant.
Instead, we passed bowls,
sipped at brittle silences,
our small rituals
a flimsy bridge over the gulf
of old arguments
and long-forgotten debts.
Now it’s just me and the clock,
its hands moving steadily forward
as if to remind me
there’s no way back.
I remember once
there was joy in this day—
paper hats shaped like pilgrim caps,
sticky fingers clutching wishbones,
a pie cooling on the windowsill
while someone hummed a hymn
too quiet to name.
But the years have swept it all away,
replaced it with empty chairs
and the faint ticking of the past
beneath my skin.
Still, I whisper thank you,
to the night,
to the silence,
to whatever part of me
still believes the feast
was meant for the hungry
and not just the full.
Outside, the wind carries
the brittle cry of a single leaf,
its freedom too fragile to last.