the shape of her silence
She lives alone, but not in the way people understand. Her loneliness is not loud, it does not ask to be
seen. It exists quietly beneath everything, shaping the way she moves through the world. There is always
a distance around her, in the way she dresses, in the way she paints her face, in the way she carries
something people cannot quite read. She does not try to stand out, yet she never blends in. She has tried.
She has softened herself, erased the parts that felt too much, too unfamiliar. For a moment, she almost
became something easier to accept. But when she looked at her reflection, there was nothing there. So
she stopped trying. She returns to herself, layer by layer, not to be understood, not to be accepted, but
simply to feel real again. The world continues around her, people connect, laugh, exist in ways that
never fully reach her. She remains where she has always been, alone but not searching, silent but not
empty
