Feeling Known

Most days I move through the world like a ghost. Talking, smiling, nodding, but never really touched. People hear my words, but they don’t hear me. They see my face, but they don’t see the storm behind my eyes. And I tell myself it’s fine. That maybe we’re not meant to be understood. That maybe loneliness is just the tax of being alive. But then every once in a while someone looks at me and doesn’t look away. They catch the tremble in my voice, the weight in my silence. And they don’t ask me to explain. They don’t try to fix it. They just know. And for that one moment I am not invisible. I am not strange. I am not too much, or not enough. I am simply seen. And it hurts, how rare it is. It hurts, how much I need it. But it’s the closest thing to home I have ever felt.