Out Of Place
Maybe I am not the strange creature I have made myself out to be.
All my life, I have felt the eyes some sharp with ridicule, others softened by pity. Even the kind ones were kind in a way that stung, calling me brave for breathing as I am. As if existing in my own skin were a dare. I should be applauded for surviving?
I learned to keep to the corners, to make myself smaller than a shadow, to be polite enough to disappear. I watched other people belong to each other, laughing with an ease I could not counterfeit. I was the empty chair at the end of the table, kept there out of obligation never quite pulled in.
Now there are people who meet me without flinching, who's eyes do not slide pass mine. I want to believe them. I want to believe I am wanted, but there is a voice that coils in my ribs, telling me that they will grow tired, telling me I am a noise they are too polite to hush.
That voice has been in my shadow, my longest companion and yet, lately another voice stirs. It is not loud. It does not fight. It simply waits for me to listen.
It is quiet, and it is careful. It tells me. You belong here.