There was this boy who used to sit alone on a rusted porch a few blocks from my childhood home. I don’t remember his name—just the stillness of him. Like he was holding his breath for a world that would never exhale. Some kids wear silence like a hoodie; he wore it like skin. People said his parents were “complicated,” which is adult code for we’d rather not get involved. He vanished sometime before junior year. No one asked where. It’s strange how easily a person can be erased just by not being wanted. Not hated, not bullied. Just… unchosen. And when someone goes unseen long enough, they begin to wonder if they were ever real. Lately, I think about him when I scroll past the headlines—another teenager radicalized online, another manifesto, another explosion of grief dressed as rage. People gasp, ask the same tired questions: How could this happen? Why didn’t anyone see the signs? But invisibility doesn’t leave signs. It leaves absence. We like to believe harm begins with intent. But i...
I dwell in the spaces where shadows meet light, where questions outnumber answers. A seeker of truths buried deep, I write to unearth what lies beneath the surface. In the chaos, I find my voice. In the silence, I find myself.