Dinner With My Fears
Tonight,
I sat at a table
with all of my fears.
There wasn’t enough room.
Failure arrived first,
still wearing my face.
She smiled politely,
asked if I’d finally accepted
that I’ll never become
everything I dreamed of.
Before I could answer,
Grief pulled out a chair.
She didn’t say much.
She never does.
She just looked at me
like we’d known each other
for years.
We have.
Self-doubt
wouldn’t stop talking.
Every sentence
ended with a question mark.
Are you sure?
What if you’re wrong?
What if they leave when they finally know you?
Loneliness laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because she’d already heard
this conversation before.
Fear of failure
ordered another drink.
Fear of being forgotten
kept checking the door
to see if anyone else
was coming.
No one did.
Then…
Abandonment arrived.
The room changed.
Every fear went quiet.
Even Grief
looked away.
She sat across from me
like she’d always owned
that chair.
She didn’t have to introduce herself.
I’ve known her
since I was little.
She folded her hands
and asked,
“How much of yourself did you give away today just to make someone stay?”
I didn’t answer.
She smiled.
She already knew.
She reminded me
of every apology
I never owed.
Every boundary
I called selfish.
Every version of myself
I buried alive
so someone else
wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.
She spoke the longest.
The others
hardly interrupted.
Because every fear
at that table
had learned its language
from her.
Failure said,
“You’ll disappoint them.”
Self-doubt whispered,
“You’re too much.”
Loneliness added,
“No one stays forever.”
Even Grief nodded.
They were all saying
the same thing.
Just with different mouths.
I sat there
listening.
Until something strange happened.
A chair scraped the floor.
Hope.
Late as always.
She looked exhausted.
Like she’d fought traffic
just to get here.
She sat beside me,
not across from me.
She didn’t argue
with my fears.
She simply reached
for my hand.
And for the first time
all evening—
Abandonment
stopped talking.
Because maybe
the loudest voice
at the table
was never the truest one.
Maybe it was just
the oldest.
— Destiny
A little between the lines…
I think fear has a way of disguising itself.
Sometimes it calls itself failure.
Sometimes loneliness.
Sometimes self-doubt.
Sometimes it convinces us that making ourselves smaller is easier than risking someone walking away.
But if you listen long enough, sometimes you realize all those voices learned how to speak from the same place.
I wanted this poem to give those voices bodies.
To sit them around a table.
To let them talk.
And then, eventually, to let Hope pull up a chair.
Not because Hope magically makes fear disappear.
She doesn’t even argue with it.
She just sits beside you.
Sometimes that’s enough to make the oldest voice in the room a little quieter.
Until next time,
— Destiny
P.S. If your fears had a seat at the table, which one would talk the most? 🖤
destinylaharris 