Member Poem

There's someone I know. Someone who probably doesn't know me. I seem to know him more than he knows himself. I know everything about him and I know nothing at all. There's someone I know who has blind friends around him. Friends who laugh too loud and speak without care. Unable to understand the difference between pain and laughter. Friends who mistake attention for care, jokes for love, and noise for connection. They orbit around him but they never truly see him. They mock what they don't understand, celebrate the shallow, and drown him in their nonsense while he stays silent, smiling just enough to survive it. To hide it. I watch him follow along, and I see the hurt tucked behind his words that trail behind. This is a truth that only I can see. I seem to worry and care for him more than the people he spends his time with the most. He races to keep up. It is interesting  to me. Almost strange. It is interesting that I am the one unnoticed and so far away, but caring, recognizing, and understanding him from across the room. The one so far away, yet I see him. I recognize him. I understand him. From across the classroom. Across people. Past lives. Through faces. Into hearts. There's someone I know who spends his time surrounded. He spends his time with noise, with stupid mistakes, and friendships that rot beneath the surface. He lets them speak for him, lets their voices drown his own, because being alone might feel worse than being surrounded by the wrong people. Each time I see him, I see a clear reflection of myself. We function the same way. Slow to start. Easily lost. Reading the same line over and over and over until giving up feels easier than trying again. I know the feeling of not understanding what everyone else does. I know the feeling of believing I am stupid and 15 steps behind even when I work 20 times harder than anyone else in my class. I know what it feels like to race against my grades and hide my misunderstanding behind humor. There is someone I know and I can tell he is drained. Drowning in silence and sitting in a room full of people who never really see him. Helpless. I look, and I know I should help. I want to help. I see you when others don't, and what I see, I feel for. There is someone I know. Someone who talks loud until his friends turn away. Someone who sinks when he is alone. Someone whose head rests quietly on folded arms, low to the desk.  I understand his words and excuses, saying he's tired. He is, but he's not just waiting for sleep. Not just in the way they think. Sometimes I wish I could just ask what’s wrong, let them know it's alright, be a space to land, to listen, to care. I can't. I care through the words on this page that will never reach this person I know. Once you become invisible, you stay that way. I wouldn't dare cross that line.