I stay behind the screens,
watching from far away from
friends laughing in pleasant light,
while I shrink into the corners
like dust nobody will sweep up.


They talk freely and
my words rot in my throat.
Every “how are you?”
is like an exam I already failed
so I smile with hollow notes.


I want to say I miss you all,
but it hangs like guilt in my chest.
I want to ask can you see me?
But I already know the rest.
I'm just that blur in the group picture
there, but never really there.


It's not your fault that you don’t notice.
I made it easy for you to ignore.
I shrink back into smallness even quieter
than background noise,
somewhere along the way
I started to believe I was less than nothing more.


But still
I watch. I care. I wish.
Even if I can’t speak it right.
Even if my silence
is all that you remember.

You simply walk by
Like I was air
A shadow thin, barely there.
I talk in silence, I scream inside
As you still turn and let me slide.

You are so close, I can feel your skin,
Yet you are so far I could never get in.
You laugh, you live, your world goes on,
While I feel the tears, not even my own.

You are gone when I need you most,
A flight of light, a missing ghost.
Tomorrow comes and you may show,
But never quite enough to hold me close.

Ignore me now, forget this face,
Come back when time has left its trace.