around the table \ lingering
No one has moved yet.
Plates are empty.
The meal is over.
But the table holds you.
Conversation has softened into something quieter.
Laughter comes in smaller waves.
Silence sits comfortably.
Hands rest.
Candles burn lower.
Light shifts across familiar faces.
There's nowhere else to be.
This is the part that matters -
not the meal,
but the staying after.
Full.
Content.
Surrounded.
Eventually someone will stand.
The evening will move on.
But not yet.
Right now, you linger.
listen: to the playlist that accompanies this memory
