The Ghost in the Room

I sit here,

sensing the world spin

faster than I could follow,

like a blur of people’s faces

too intense to touch.

I am here,

but barely.

I’m just an empty shell,

a ghost,

watching moving objects be

without me.

 

I feel the pull of my own absence,

Is this life mine to claim, or just something I’m watching pass by?

I could fade into nothing, and would anyone even notice?

Maybe they wouldn’t, and that’s okay. Maybe they don’t need to.

 

The cold wood under me

doesn’t matter.

The hard desk doesn’t matter.

I am frozen,

stiff,

too in pain to move.

The world is loud,

but I am silent,

too unimportant to be heard,

too tired to speak.

 

My hair is the only thing that moves.

The bright blonde strands,

so loud,

too perfect,

too obvious—

a mark of attention I never asked for,

a show for them,

like an amusement park attraction,

meant to draw eyes,

meant to make noise,

meant to make me seen,

but not really known.

 

I feel like a child,

lost in the self-importance of people,

hesitant to speak up.

They don’t see me.

I am another moving object in their piercing eyes,

An empty shell of a human body that they want to use.

They don’t see the weight

that presses down on my chest,

the exhaustion that fills my bones,

the quiet surrender

that settles in my skin.

I am not a friend, or a foe.

I am nothing. Yet I am everything.

 

I don’t want to keep up.

I don’t want to chase after them,

to play the broken record

that never ends.

I am so tired of pretending,

tired of lying when I don’t feel like moving.

I am here,

but only in body,

my mind is already somewhere else—

drifting,

floating,

Disconnected.

It’s watching over.

I can feel its piercing and painfully clear eyes.

 

My stomach is a hollow pit,

gnawing emptiness that refuses to be filled.

I could eat, but nothing feels satisfying.

I am hungry,

but nothing nourishes me.

It’s a gnawing anxiety,

a hollow ache

that won’t quiet down.

I could let the hunger consume me,

but instead,

I sit here—

an echo of something that once mattered.

 

None of my friends have messaged.

They don’t care,

or maybe they do,

but it doesn’t matter.

I’ve told myself I’m fine,

that I don’t need them,

but the silence is deafening.

I’m left alone with my thoughts,

my stomach,

my restlessness,

and the certainty that I’m too small to matter.

 

I could disappear right now,

Become a piece of the unperceived, unmoving,

but I don’t.

I stay.

I am but a clown and a joke.

I let the world rush by me.

Let it go on without me.

Let the world be entertained by my boring old repetitive show.

I am just a spectator now,

a face in the crowd,

but a ghost in my own skin.

 

There’s no face left in me.

The energy is gone.

I have only my interiority and desperation to prove.

I don’t even care if I matter.

I can laugh on my own.

I just want to be still,

let the world go on

while I remain here,

unchanged,

unseen,

but always watching.

 

Maybe I’ll always be a ghost,

a whisper in the desert,

but I’ve learned to let it be.

I’ll stay here, in my stillness,

no longer fighting the world that rushes past me.

I am not empty.

I am simply waiting for the moment to breathe again.