Full Room
Ok
The room is loud with laughter,
glasses clinking like tiny celebrations,
voices overlapping
as if everyone belongs to everyone.
I stand in the middle of it,
smiling at the right moments,
nodding at stories
I don’t quite hear.
My phone lights up —
not with a message,
just a notification
from an app reminding me
I exist.
Everyone here is known.
Tagged.
Mentioned.
Called by name across the room.
My name feels like
a word no one practices.
I laugh when they laugh.
I speak when spoken to.
I am a well-timed response
in a conversation
that would continue without me.
Outside, the street hums
with headlights and passing lives.
Windows glow in stacked apartments —
little squares of togetherness.
I wonder
how many of them
are standing in their own crowded rooms
feeling
like furniture.
The music swells.
Someone pulls someone closer.
The night keeps moving forward.
And I am here —
present,
visible,
untouched.
Like a star
in a sky too bright
to be seen.
B