Writers 
Lost in a classroom full of voices,
Yet their eyes skim over me,
never once coming to rest.
As though I stood forever beyond the door.
It stings like a thorn beneath the skin,
but what can one do?
They talk, yet their voices drift past me
like leaves on a restless wind.
And yet, they never pause
to leave a seat for me
at the table of their conversations.
They are content
to warm themselves by familiar fires
so long as their chosen few understand.
I knew,
yet still I carried a candle against the wind
Hoping I, too,
might one day sit beside their fire.
And yet, belonging seemed to demand a different version of me.
Then comes the night,
and the loneliness hidden by the crowd
becomes impossible to ignore.
And the mind turns the pages of yesterday,
pausing at words written and words left blank.
The words they spoke,
and the ones that died upon their lips.
Then suddenly, almost too suddenly,
the flame steadies and I see clearly.
And I ask myself
why I bent so far to fit their mould,
until I scarcely knew my own shape.
When they wouldn't even let me share in their sunlight.
Then it dawns on me,
the night only echoed a pain
that daylight had already planted.
It was what helped me gather
the scattered pieces of my reflection.
It was what made me see
I had been knocking on a door
that was never meant to open.
It was what led me back to the parts of myself I had abandoned
at the doors of belonging.
