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The Room Where You Can't See Me
The Room Where You Can't See Me
I married you,
but somewhere along the way
we became two people
living in the same house
with separate lives.
I still try to talk to you.
I start a story,
and before I can finish the thought,
you interrupt,
or your eyes fall back to your phone,
and my words become something
I quietly carry away.
Later,
when I mention what I told you,
you swear I never did.
And I wonder
how many pieces of me
have disappeared
simply because you weren't listening.
We still kiss.
We still say, I love you.
But sometimes those words feel like
the last two things standing
after everything else
has packed up and left.
I ask for an hour.
Just one hour
where the little glowing screen
isn't more interesting than my face.
One hour
where I don't have to compete
for the attention
of the man beside me.
The things we used to love together,
I do alone now.
The places,
the moments,
the little things that once belonged to us
slowly became mine.
So I stay in my room,
where you can't see me.
Maybe because it hurts less
to be unseen behind a closed door
than to sit right beside you
and realize
you don't see me anyway.
And the strangest part is—
lately,
I miss intimacy.
I miss being touched
like someone knows me.
I miss being wanted
by someone I know.
But how do you reach for someone
who is always somewhere else?
Sometimes physically.
Most times mentally.
How do I give my body
to a man
who no longer knows my thoughts?
How do I undress
in front of someone
I can't even finish a sentence with?
I don't want another man.
I want the man
I remember.
The one I laughed with.
The one I couldn't wait to tell things to.
The one who knew my stories
because he actually heard them.
I want to feel close enough
to reach across the bed
without feeling like
I'm reaching across miles.
Because somewhere between
the interruptions,
the phone,
the separate rooms,
and all those ordinary nights,
we didn't stop being married.
We became strangers
who still kiss goodbye
and say I love you.
And somehow,
that is lonelier
than being alone.
