every room is lit with lamps
casting warmth on clustered faces,
their glow wrapping others
in soft, golden halos.
i stand at the edges,
a shadow they forget to notice,
a shape the light refuses to hold.

i try stepping closer,
but the circles are closed,
their boundaries invisible
until i press too hard and feel
the resistance—
a subtle shift, a glance that says
this isn’t your place.

i laugh at the right times,
offer words like keys
to locks that will never turn.
their stories flow around me,
like rivers cutting paths
i am too far upstream to follow.
even my silence feels loud,
awkward, misplaced,
a foreign language
in a room fluent in belonging.

the lamps flicker with their joy,
their secrets, their shared histories.
i try to hold a piece of it,
but it slips through my fingers,
light too fleeting,
never mine to keep.

sometimes, i wonder—
if i smashed a lamp,
let the glass scatter and the light die,
would they see me then?
or would i only become
another shard to sweep away?

so i stay in the shadows,
my own dim corner,
watching the lamps glow for others.
maybe it’s safer here,
where the light can’t expose
all the ways i don’t belong.