Belonging tastes like a memory you never made, folded into bread and handed to you warm. It sits beside you, unspoken, like steam rising from a chipped mug. Between bites, there’s a silence that doesn’t ache—only nods. Food doesn’t ask. It remembers. It cradles your absence until you return. The salt on your lip might be from a tear or a fry; it doesn’t matter. The plate listens. The spoon forgets your name but knows your hunger. In the clatter and hush of diners, in the half-light of closing time, there is a choir of ghosts singing lullabies in sauce. You do not need to be known. You only need to chew.