Tables and Doors Poems About the Places We Leave, the People We Outgrow, and the Life We Learn to Choose What if the tables you were once desperate to sit at were never meant to be your final destination? What if the doors that closed behind you were not the end of your story, but the beginning of a life you had not yet imagined? Tables and Doors is a deeply personal collection of 100 contemporary poems about belonging, heartbreak, distance, loneliness, growth, self-worth, and the quiet courage it takes to begin again. These poems explore the moments that change us: The friendship that slowly becomes a memory. The relationship you keep trying to save. The empty chair where someone used to sit. The door you kept knocking on long after you knew it would not open. The room you had to leave because staying meant losing yourself. And eventually, the table you learn to build for yourself. Across ten emotional chapters, Penny Ortis traces the complicated journey from wanting to belong to understanding that belonging should never require you to become smaller. From the tables we once shared to the doors we eventually choose to walk through, these poems invite you to sit with what was, release what no longer fits, and make room for what comes next. Inside these pages, you will find poems about: Love and heartbreak Friendship and growing apart Rejection and belonging Loneliness and solitude Self-worth and boundaries Memories and unfinished goodbyes Letting go of people and places Becoming someone new Choosing yourself without apology Hope, courage, and new beginnings Some poems may remind you of someone you once loved. Some may sound like the words you never found the courage to say. Others may meet you in a season when you are standing between what you know and what comes next. Because sometimes, healing does not look like forgetting. Sometimes it looks like leaving the table without resentment. Sometimes it means closing a door without waiting for an explanation. And sometimes it means turning the handle on a new door and discovering that there was a life waiting for you all along. Tables and Doors is for anyone who has ever felt left out, left behind, lost, changed, or simply ready for something different. For anyone learning that not every table deserves their presence. For anyone discovering that some endings are invitations. And for anyone standing at a door, wondering whether they are brave enough to walk through. There are tables you will leave. There are doors that will close. There are people you will outgrow. And there is still a life waiting for you to choose it.
