I fumble with the sticky packet in my pocket, scrambling for a packet to sedate the burn on my tongue, the food stains on my almost perfectly white teeth.

I take a stick out, and the gum in my palm pops inside my mouth and soothes the churning uncertainty writhing in my bones; much better, cleaner, than a cigarette.

I bask in the minty freshness of my small treat, consuming a filter of air, no doubt breathing in carbon dioxide and all the other filthy pollution floating inside the smoke in the city.

The rock-hard, cemented pavement is the only sound that drifts inside my ears, drifting inside my soundless being, the emptiness rotting away inside.

I inhale another gasp of air.

The raucous conversations of passer-by’s and the screams of traffic screeching through the evening light hum inside my head. I focus on the blurring buildings as I walk, glass doors reflecting the burning pain in my eyes, the pupil widened for help, for attention.

Why doesn’t anyone ever see me?
Why am I invisible in the city?

I choke on the dirty air, clutch my bony sides, feel a hot teardrop squeeze onto my cheek. As I flatten my back against a vintage shop door and close my eyes, a faint pink shade darkens my skin, betraying my shame.

I wish I could go home. But it isn’t home anymore, hasn’t been for a long time.

There are over ten million citizens in the city. And not one of them stops by to see if I am alright.

But I am alright. I always am.

The shadows of the haunted are used to fading into darkness; irrelevant, worthless, insignificant, invisible in the city.