Lessons from the Dinner Table
Their comfort minus my hunger equaled peace.
The lesson came with the plates. My father’s shoulders already carried evening like a coat he meant to drop wherever. My brother drummed the flatware, hungry in the loud, careless way boys are allowed to be. Steam rose. No one named it tension. But I could feel the air arranging itself around the largest moods. I could taste bitterness coating my tongue. I learned to watch the jaw first. Then the hands. If the fist tightened around the fork, I passed the bread. If the silence lengthened, I filled it. School was useful that way— I brought home small, harmless stories, soft animals to lay at their feet. Look, a gold star. Look, something easy to love. My mother moved like someone carrying water while walking a tightrope. I moved like her echo. We were careful with the weight of things. We were careful with the word no. No one wrote it down, but the math was clear: their comfort minus my hunger equaled peace. So I ate quickly. I laughed quietly and early. I politely folded my questions back into my napkin. Across the table the men grew lighter, their bodies unfastening from the day. “Good girl,” they said. I felt the room exhale as if I had done something remarkable, as if I had lifted the roof and set it back in place. They will say I am capable. They will say I am strong. They will fail to see the child still carrying plates, still listening for thunder, offering weather to keep the sky from falling. Then the day came— I set the plates down. Shoulders loosened. Breath, finally mine. Nothing fell. This poem was first published in Fourth Wave Publication on Medium.com. Thank you so much for being here! What She Said Publications. Author: Bee
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