Poem: Are We The Dining Dead?

Edited By: Vanishree

 [Inspired by The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind]

soft hues of orange spray paint the room,

and the dining table comes looking for us.

the room is full of exasperated sighs

at the frailty between our steps and

then ourselves. love has a way

of shifting between the familiar

and the unknown, filling the void

with uncertainty and confusion,

as the taste of comfortable silence gets harder and harder to forget.

denial knocks at our hearts and

waits for acceptance to open the door.

we sit on opposite ends

of the table, my feet resting

on yours, instinctively, as

you hand me the menu. our

fingers brush against each other

but neither look away from our screens.

love has a way of communicating through

different languages, and understanding

is a privilege heartache does not allow us

to have. the cheese sticks to your chin

and the napkins look at me in confusion.

my hands rest their case and the back

of your hand takes care of my loss.

i ask about the new

scar on your jaw and

you wonder how i didn’t

notice it before. truth

hangs on to a pendulum

and waits for us to intervene.

stages of grief have resumed

themselves and love finds a way

to kill silence, only to leave behind

nothing but more silence, you order

apple pie and i wait for humour

to take our plates away.

the cheque rests on the

table and questions if we’d

like a funeral on the go with a

dash of chamomile flowers, says,

it’s on the house; says, it’s good luck.

i say, thank you, that’s sweet of you, 

you say, we’ll take the flowers only, please.

you nudge my feet with yours and i smile.

love has found a way of dressing up

like a stranger, wearing normalcy like

an overcoat left behind. the space between us might feel tasteless, but patience is long-overdue. why don’t you tell me about your day and i’ll tell you about the absence of mine. acceptance opens the door, slips a sigh of relief & says, ‘finally, what took you so long?’

About:

There’s a scene in the Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind where Joel says, “are we like those boring couples you feel sorry for in restaurants? Are we the dining dead?” and Clementine, in response, averts her eyes, and says nothing. They make small talk and look around awkwardly. Their conversation feels forced and uncomfortable. It’s sad. But it’s also not something unusual. This does happen in real life –– conversations do dry up, romance does feel dead, silences do feel uncomfortable. 

This is a poem highlighting, or rather, a personifying that idea of the dining dead. This is a couple accustomed to each other with each other’s likes and habits known and accepted. They’re not strangers. They have their own normal. A routine. Existing in comfortable silence. Except, it no longer feels so comfortable. Life has gotten busy. Now, things feel different and new. Displaced. Unknown. They no longer know where they stand with each other. It’s a vulnerable situation. Conversations, previously full of humour, are now frail, aided loosely by a sense of normalcy. They have become those boring couples they felt sorry for in the restaurants. They are the dining dead. 

But is that something they can’t come back from? They won’t know until they try. Because when it comes to love, there’s always going to be that option to let go and move on and the option to stick around and keep trying. And this poem is a glimpse of that exact juxtaposition –– how hope is kept alive even when it feels there’s no space for it, how heartache and love tend to go hand in hand and how reviving a love that feels dead just isn’t that easy –– but it’s always worth trying.

In the end, when they are asked about the funeral — a simple burial for all the conversations that died too soon and silences that got too comfortable — they decide against it. Chamomile flowers, a rare symbol for luck, are kept. Hope finds its space again, a silent promise of patience and acceptance. When love dresses as a stranger, sometimes, a simple greeting of ‘how was your day?’ can go a long way.

After all, Joel and Clementine also found their way back to each other after becoming strangers.

• ASHOKA UNIVERSITY
• Comfort
• love
• poem