Ghost

I learned how to disappear at eleven,

Started talking quieter, stopped making scenes,

Watched people love versions of me

That never matched reality.

So I shrunk myself down to survive,

Made my whole life small enough to hide,

Sat in rooms without a sound,

Like if I stayed still I wouldn’t be found.

I became the kid who said “I’m fine,”

While swallowing panic all the time,

Learned how to smile with dead eyes

And call it being polite.

Nobody notices when you fade slow,

When you stop texting, stop letting people close,

You just become background noise,

A ghost standing in the corner of the room.

And every day I lost a little more

Of who I used to be before

I learned how to disappear,

How to speak without letting people hear,

How to walk through life unseen,

Like I was never really me.

I turned invisible from the inside out,

Buried every feeling underneath the doubt,

And now I don’t know what’s left in the mirror

After years of learning how to disappear.

I stopped asking people if they cared,

’Cause silence always gave me answers there,

And eventually you get used to it—

Being tolerated, not chosen.

So I hid myself in music loud enough

To drown the static and the thoughts I trust too much, Headphones on in crowded trains,

Trying to outrun my own brain.

I let friendships rot without a fight,

Ignored calls for weeks at a time,

Not because I hated them—

I just forgot how to exist.

And some nights I’d stare at my own face

Trying to recognize the shape,

Like maybe I disappeared so deep

Even I couldn’t find me.

’Cause when nobody sees your pain,

You start believing you should stay erased—

I learned how to disappear,

How to numb every feeling when it gets too real,

How to laugh while falling apart,

How to lock every door inside my heart.

I made loneliness feel like home,

Made silence the only thing I’d hold,

And now I don’t know what’s left in the mirror

After years of learning how to disappear.

Maybe I got too good at leaving,

Too good at hiding what I’m feeling,

Now I sit in rooms with people I love

And still feel completely alone.

I built walls so high around my head

Even happiness can’t climb in,

And every version of myself I buried

Still scratches underneath my skin.

I miss who I could’ve been

If fear didn’t raise me first,

If pain didn’t teach me young

That existing always hurts.

Now I delete messages before they send,

Convince myself I’m a burden again,

Keep one foot outside every door

In case somebody gets bored.

I learned how to disappear,

But I don’t think I want to live like this forever,

Half alive and half erased,

Always hiding parts of my face.

I spent years becoming less

Just to make it through the mess,

But maybe being seen won’t kill me Even if it terrifies me.

And maybe there’s still something in the mirror Worth saving after all these years Of learning how to disappear.