Poems From The Kitchen Table

The Story Behind the Poem

Some poems don’t really start with a pen.
They just kind of show up
like a feeling
or a moment you can’t explain.
Sometimes it’s while I’m sitting at home,
when everything’s quiet
and my kid is laughing in the background
and the cats are climbing all over me.
And I start thinking
about the “real world.”
You know, the one people say is out there—
the headlines, the markets, the small talk, the noise.

And I wonder,
is that more real
than sitting with your sister
as she talks about her chemo?
Not the words themselves
but that thing you feel
when someone you love
is facing the possibility of dying.
That awareness.
That hush inside your body
that no one else can hear.

Is the outside world more real
than the voice in your gut
that says
“don’t go that way”
“don’t take that job”
“don’t let go”?

This poem started like that.
It didn’t come to explain anything
just to hold the question with me for a while.
So I wrote it down.

---

How Real Is the World?

by Valentina DuPont

I love living in my house.
I used to think I loved living inside my head,
but it’s more than that.
It’s my whole sense of self—
a quiet habitat within me,
everything and nothing at once,
a place I carry,
a place that carries me.
silently,
inspired by the beauty I see,
which often makes my body sneeze—
the trees,
the roses,
the everyday,
the every moment.

The sound of my child’s laugh,
my cats demanding affection
and pulling me gently back
to the present
when I get lost in thought.

I love living in my house:
calm,
peaceful,
loving,
safe.

Yet I know
this is not “real life.”
There is a world out there—
beautiful,
unsafe,
full of life and color
and sound and smell.

Sometimes I wish I liked people a little more:
small talk,
forced smiles,
meaningless conversations.

But I like living in my house.

How real is the real world?
I wonder.
Is it more real than the cry of my child
who can’t find his favorite airplane?
Is it more real than the fluctuations
of my emotions—
a nose kiss from my child,
then five minutes later,
his tiny hand slapping my cheek,
too full of joy to hold still?
because joy ran too wild in his tiny hands?

What is real?
We live in a world shaped by words.
Is that real?
Or is it all part of the illusion
that we are here?

I know what’s real:
the love I feel when I hold my son,
the quiet moments
when I become the observer
of what we think is “real.”

The moment I close my eyes
and with just an intention
make a horse move
and take a walk with me.

The quiet world that exists
in the rustle of leaves before dusk,
where words are not found,
only breath and pulse and presence.
The silence that hears everything—
the owl,
the breeze,
the trees.

The world I can’t explain.

I have spent my whole life
trying to find what’s real
in the outer forms of life.

Little did I know
that even the word “real”
is an illusion.

There isn’t anything real—
and therefore,
nothing unreal or fake.

All there is—
a breath,
a pulse,
a pause—
is.

And in this mystery,
I live.
Not needing proof,
only breath.
Only this moment—
my son’s laughter,
the purring cat,
and the silence
that lets me listen.

Maybe the real world
isn’t out there at all—
maybe it’s the quiet hum
inside a mother’s chest
when no one is watching,
a hum that asks again—
how real is the world?

All there is
is.

Copyright © 2025 Valentina DuPont. All rights reserved.