Rot Without Witness
I don’t fade
I rot quietly
I am here so long
the world forgets I arrived
Eyes pass through me
not by accident
by practice
like I was trained into the background
a human-shaped absence
I learned early
that silence is safer
that wanting too much gets you erased faster
so I shrink
and shrink
until even my shadow gives up on me
People talk over my chest
laugh through my ribs
step where my heart should be
and never feel a thing
Being invisible isn’t peaceful
it’s violent
it’s being ignored so hard
it starts to feel intentional
like a punishment no one admits giving
I scream sometimes
inside my skull
until my thoughts bruise
but nothing leaks out
because even pain knows
I’m not worth announcing
If I vanished tonight
no ghosts would be made
no chairs left empty
no silence noticed
Just a gap
that was already there
And the worst part
is not that no one sees me
It’s that I’m starting
not to see myself either
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