A table set for two

How many of you have experienced being stood up

I’m sitting here at this restaurant, a table set for two,

But I have one issue: I am alone.

The silver glints like frozen tears beneath the amber light,

And the chair across from me is heavy with the ghost of you.

The waiter stopped by twice, his eyes a sympathetic blur,

I told him I’m still waiting, though I’m not quite sure for whom—

The version of you that loved me, or the version that walked out the door?

Either way, the silence is the loudest thing in the room.

---

I watch the steam rise from my coffee, a slow and ghostly dance,

Tracing patterns in the air where your laughter used to be.

The bistro is a hum of life, of clinking glass and second chance,

But there’s a desert in this booth, and it’s swallowing up me.

I rearrange the napkins, align the forks with trembling hands,

Trying to build a fortress out of porcelain and lace,

But no amount of symmetry can hide the shifting sands,

Or fill the hollow vacuum of your empty, vanished space.

I remember how you’d lean in close to whisper something sweet,

How the world would shrink until it was just this wooden square.

Now the menu is a map of things I know I’ll never eat,

Because the appetite for life left when you weren’t sitting there.

People pass the window, blurred by rain and evening haste,

Each couple is a mirror showing me what I have lost.

I’m sipping on the memories, though they have a bitter taste,

Counting up the minutes and the monumental cost.

---

The candle in the center flickers, fighting off the draft,

A tiny, golden heartbeat that is running out of time.

I think of how we planned this life, how we sat and talked and laughed,

Before the rhythm faltered and we ran out of the rhyme.

I could leave this table now; I could pay the check and go,

Disappear into the darkness like a shadow in the street.

But there’s a desperate part of me that’s moving far too slow,

Hoping for a miracle that I know I’ll never meet.

The clock upon the far wall ticks a steady, rhythmic beat,

Counting down the seconds of a dinner never shared.

I’m a king of empty places, reigning from a velvet seat,

In a kingdom built of "almosts" and a heart that’s permanently bared.

The reservation’s over, and the lights are burning low,

The world is moving forward, but I’m frozen in the "do you?"

And as I finally stand to leave, there’s one thing that I know:

No matter how hard I try, I’m not over you.

**A Table Set for Two** *Written by Eldridge Brown*