The world is full. Overflowing, even— with voices, lights, the hum of a thousand small lives bumping into each other. Yet it feels empty, a vast hollowness that stretches even through the busiest streets. There’s a coldness here, woven into the air. It slips beneath my skin, settles in my bones. I think it’s only mine. No one else shivers like this. I wander through it, like a ghost that never learned how to haunt. People see me. I know they do. Their eyes slide over me, their lips part with greetings that sound practiced. There is recognition, but no holding. It’s as if they nod to my existence but refuse to believe in it— the way you might glance at a shadow and tell yourself it’s nothing. So I keep moving, half here, half not. A presence acknowledged and denied in the same breath. An outline in their world, but never the shape. And maybe that’s the worst kind of loneliness— not being unseen, but being seen and still not known.