Dictation microphone and scribble area not showing when attempting to reply to a text

I'm on the latest watch OS (8.4.1), I have all siri capabilities turned on on my phone (iOS 15.3) and dictation turned on on my apple watch series 6 and now when I tap in the text field to reply to a text alert or after going into the messages app and into a thread, it just shows cancel top left, send top right, a blinking text cursor, and the emoji icon in the bottom left. No scribble pad area that used to be there in the center nor the dictation microphone icon in the bottom right. It's driving me insane and significantly decreasing the usefulness of having the watch in the first place. any idea what is going on here?