“The Loneliness I Feel”
There is a loneliness that lives inside me,
one that doesn’t leave when someone walks into the room.
It sits quietly beneath every conversation,
behind every smile I force onto my face,
behind every time I say I’m fine
because explaining the truth
would take more energy than I have left.
I can be surrounded by people,
hear their laughter,
feel their hands on my shoulders,
listen to them talk about their lives,
and still feel like I am standing somewhere
they cannot see me.
Like I am there,
but not really there.
Just another body taking up space
in a room full of people
who would never notice
how far away I’ve gone.
I wonder sometimes
if anyone really knows me anymore.
Not the version of me that makes jokes,
or asks how everyone else is doing,
or pretends that everything is manageable.
I mean the person underneath all of that.
The one who lies awake at night
with a thousand things to say
and no one to say them to.
People think loneliness means being alone.
I wish it were that simple.
Being alone is something I can understand.
There is a reason for the silence.
But being lonely in a crowded room
is a different kind of hurt.
It makes you question your place in the world.
It makes you wonder
how many people could stand beside you
and still never truly be there.
I have become so good
at swallowing the things that hurt me.
At changing the subject.
At saying it doesn’t matter.
At convincing myself
that I shouldn’t expect too much from anyone.
Because disappointment has become familiar,
and somehow it hurts less
when I tell myself
I knew it was coming.
Sometimes I want someone to notice.
Not because I asked.
Not because I finally broke down
and made my sadness impossible to ignore.
I want someone to look at me
and realize that something is missing.
That the person standing in front of them
is barely holding together
the pieces of a life
that no longer feels like mine.
But the days keep passing.
People keep living.
Phones stay silent.
Conversations end.
Everyone goes home to their own lives,
and I go back to mine,
carrying the same emptiness
I brought with me.
And perhaps the saddest part
is how ordinary it has all become.
I no longer expect the phone to ring.
I no longer wait for someone to ask
the questions I am afraid to answer.
I no longer mistake being remembered
for being loved.
I just exist
somewhere between the noise of other people
and the silence that waits for me afterward.
Surrounded by so many,
known by so few,
and understood by even fewer.
And when the room finally empties,
when the last voice fades
and the door closes behind everyone,
nothing really changes.
The loneliness was there the entire time.
It simply no longer has to compete
with the sound of everyone else.