A Strange Child in a Familiar World

I sat on the floor,
toy tractor in hand,
while adults drifted past me
like silhouettes
their edges soft,
their presence unsure,
as if they were ghosts
pretending to be real.

Everyone seemed half-there.
Everyone seemed imaginary.
I hadn’t learned the difference yet.

They said I was “playing,”
said I was a child
with too much imagination.
But the ones who sat beside me
the ones only I could see
spoke with voices
too heavy for pretend,
eyes too knowing
for make-believe.

“Imaginary friends,” they whispered,
trying to tame what they feared.
But some laughed with me,
some lingered in corners,
and some mourned things
the living had forgotten.

I learned early
that hellos meant nothing
and goodbyes meant less.
The room was always shifting
someone arriving,
someone leaving,
someone staying just long enough
to remind me
that my world
was not the same as theirs.

Every truth I spoke
twisted their faces into fear.
What I saw
what I felt
did not fit the clean borders
of the world they trusted.

So I learned silence
before I learned safety.
I learned to swallow visions
before they reached my lips.
I learned that truth
could isolate a child faster
than any locked door.

I stayed small.
I stayed quiet.
I played with my toy tractor
as if it were enough
to keep the shadows company.

A strange child
in a familiar world
a world that felt tilted,
blinking,
unsteady,
a world built for people
who only believed
what their eyes could hold.

I belonged to the in-between,
to the whispers in empty rooms,
to the soft footsteps
no one else could hear.

And even then
I understood
that the haunting
had already begun.