The Call at Dinner

The phone glows cold in the dim kitchen light—

sharp blue cutting across plates left untouched.

I hold it like a knife, slicing through the evening,

words delivered crisp, but the warmth leaks out.

They said yes.

But the hours stack up, a slow mountain crushing

fractured bones I barely had time to mend.

Dinner cools on the table, forgotten.

Achievement tastes like salt and grit.

I wanted this. Didn’t I?

The call left me hollow, a glass cracked down the side,

brimming with all the lost things I didn’t see coming.