Dining Table

The dining table in my house,

a battlefield as it has always been,

with four worn out chairs and a table adorned with scratches

rests in an often visited yet gloomy corner of the house.

Still, it brings the four of us together thrice a day,

though we sit miles apart from each other

and talk through the rattling noise of knives and forks,

making it impossible for us to swallow the food down our throats.

So we spit, sometimes bitter truth and sometimes beautiful lies

but mostly bitter lies,

lies that used to make father shout and mother cry,

lies that made us go numb and lies that don’t feel like lies anymore.

But it wasn’t always like this,

earlier, we used to smile through breakfast and sing through dinner,

we used to talk using our tongues instead of forks and knives,

and our table stood strong and shiny.

But the table has become old now

and it creaks when mother serves food,

maybe because father bangs it with his fist a lil too often,

or maybe because mother puts down her head carrying all the world’s weight on it.

But the table stays,

though not as strong as before

but it still stands and serves us bullets in the name of love,

it holds us together, even though in bits and pieces.

By Tamanna Malik

From: India

Instagram: tamannaamalik