The Spare Chair at My Table

There is a spare chair at my table

that I set like an altar

for the life that hasn’t arrived yet.

I put a plate there sometimes,

just to see how it feels

to prepare for company.

The fork shines with expectation.

The napkin is folded

like a small, nervous bird.

Friends laugh and ask,

“Waiting for someone?”

as if the chair is for a lover,

a stranger,

a late guest.

I nod,

because it’s easier

than saying

I’m waiting for

a version of myself

Who doesn’t sit

at the edge of everything.

The chair has its own biography:

Once, it held you

When we tried to teach the room

What “us” meant.

After you left,

It held my laundry

for a humiliating month,

as if being useful

was a demotion.

Now it’s a lighthouse,

Its wooden body

a quiet beam

toward possibility.

When my chest sags

like a tired tablecloth,

I look at that extra seat

and think:

There is space here

for someone—

even if, today,

That someone is just me

being a little less absent.

On lonely nights

I almost tuck the chair away,

Shove it back into the corner

with old boxes and “not now.”

It would be safer,

Wouldn’t it?

to have a table that matches

My current headcount?

But grief taught me

that putting things in storage

doesn’t stop them

from taking up space.

So I leave the chair out,

a visible risk,

a wooden invitation

to whatever good

might someday sit down.

Sometimes I rest

my own feet on it,

turn the spare seat

into a makeshift throne

for tired legs.

Sometimes I place

a book there,

open to the chapter

I haven’t dared to live yet.

On better days,

I sit in that chair myself,

just to see the room

from a different angle.

From there,

The window looks closer,

the world less far.

It reminds me

that I am both a guest

and host

in this life—

allowed to arrive late,

allowed to leave early,

still welcome

Either way.

One day,

Someone might fill that space

with their laughter,

their elbow on the table,

Their story is spilling ketchup

on my careful metaphors.

Or maybe no one will,

and instead

I’ll learn to sit across

from a version of me

who finally feels like enough.

In any case,

the spare chair at my table

It is not a monument

to emptiness.

It’s a promise

that I won’t build my world

so small

There’s no room

for anything new.