Invisible in the Crowd

Invisible in the Crowd

I stand where voices gather,

laughter spilling like wine,

but none of it reaches me.

Their eyes pass over mine

as if I were glass,

a shape without weight,

a name without sound.

Loneliness is not the absence of bodies—

it is the absence of being seen.

The hollow ache of invisibility

even as shoulders brush mine.

I could scream,

and still their conversations

would weave around me

like smoke ignoring stone.

So I sit quietly,

a ghost in the present tense,

learning how it feels

to be surrounded,

yet utterly alone.