Absent in Plain Sight

There's no place left to stand

I'm learning to vanish

They pluck their insults like rotting fruit

Throwing lines in circles, cold and acute

Each smirk a thread in a strangling net

No punchline lands without regret

I shrink between their careless noise

Crushed beneath their sharpened poise

Trying to laugh, my throat ran dry

Bit my tongue till the words turned shy

I am mute among men, unheard, unseen

Cracks in the paint, split wide and clean

Don't call it teasing, it leaves a bruise

You never asked what I might lose

Sideways glances, crooked tone

A thousand rooms and still alone

Their voices crowd like metal scraping

Each breath feels borrowed, barely escaping

I walked backwards into the noise

Built walls from discarded voice

If I dissolve right here, right now

Would it even crease your brow

I am mute among men, unheard, unseen

Cracks in the paint, split wide and clean

It's not just words, it's where they land

You burn my name into your brand

I'm the absence you created

Just another ghost paraded

I am mute among men, forgotten and thin

Folding my edges to fit back in

You sharpen your joy on someone's skin

And never wonder what it's wearing thin

Don't look for me in the noise you made

I buried my name in the sound you played