Outside the Circle

A skin that feels borrowed, a voice that sometimes cracks with unfamiliar tones. Mirrors offer shifting landscapes, a fleeting cast of characters I try on like costumes, none quite fitting the soul's contours. The yearning, a constant hum beneath the surface, to root somewhere, to be recognized without explanation, to find the unspoken language that binds one heart to another. Circles form, impenetrable walls of shared history, of knowing glances and inside jokes I stand outside, a silent observer, tracing the patterns I can't quite join. Is belonging a place? A shared address on a map? Or is it the echo of recognition in another's eyes? The struggle: to shed the borrowed skins, to find the authentic cadence of my own voice, and to trust that somewhere, a space waits, not to be filled, but to be inhabited, fully, as the self I am still learning to know. ©bfa051725