Ignored

standing in a crowded room

surrounded by humanity

I feel dead to the souls

of these around me

 

breathing the same air as me

yet unaware of my existence

unknowing and uncaring

I am a statue of stone

 

to those who move and mingle

around me with laughter and joy

telling jokes and tales

of lives gone and lives lived

 

they look straight through as if

I am a ghost of the past

the present and the future

I do not exist to them

 

as I drown in an ocean

of ignorance trying to reach a

shore that never appears

but grows ever distant

 

a shore that will broaden the

horizons of these that confine

me to a voiceless universe

a poisoned chalice never to be

 

consumed for fear of having their

own perceptions and

preconceptions challenged

and found wanting

 

by those who will judge

others without the

utterance of a single

vowel to them

 

and never look in the mirror

and judge the faceless soul

that stares at them

and ask the question

 

what am I doing to this person