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for those who know what it’s like to be visible but not believed

Every day is another lesson in invisibility.
Not the kind you choose, not the soft fade of a disappearing act.
This is the kind handed down in glances that slide past you.
In doors that stay closed just a second longer when you’re approaching.
In the space you leave behind when you’re gone, and no one notices the shape of your absence.

You become fluent in the language of indifference.
You learn the weight of unasked questions.
You memorize the way people say “I didn’t see you there” like it’s a kindness,
instead of an indictment.

There is a peculiar violence in being overlooked.
Not bruised. Not broken. Just… reduced.
Down to skin, down to stereotype, down to background noise.
They don’t mean to erase you—
and somehow, that makes it worse.

They’ll say you’re quiet.
You’ll wonder if they’ve ever actually listened.

You wear shame like a second skin.
Not because you earned it,
but because somewhere along the way,
someone handed it to you like inheritance
and you forgot how to put it down.

You stand still in a world built to move around you—
fast, loud, full of curated meaning.
And you begin to question:

Is there something wrong with me, or is there something wrong with this lens that always finds me blurred?

You’ve learned to map your pain in silence.
Each breath is a kind of protest.
Each blink a refusal to disappear entirely.

There are veins beneath your skin that look like lightning—
not because you are struck,
but because you are always just about to burn.

And yet you don’t.
Not fully.

You endure.
Not in glory. Not with applause.
But with defiance.
The quiet kind.
The kind that goes unnoticed until someone says:

“I didn’t realize you were carrying that much.”

And you smile without smiling,
because you know the truth:

You were always carrying that much.
They just never asked to know.