There is a difference
between wanting to be seen
and surviving being seen.
Between wishing someone would notice
and enduring what their eyes make of you.
A person can spend years
aching for a witness
and still flinch
when someone finally looks.
Because being seen
is never only being seen.
It is being interpreted.
Named.
Measured.
Remembered incorrectly.
And sometimes
the safest place to exist
is just outside
the reach of someone else\'s understanding.