I walk through the market of belonging.
Stalls selling flags I've never wanted.
The eyes find me.
Not with hate.
Just the quiet confusion
of a door that was never installed.
I am not rebellion.
Rebellion still kneels to what it fights.
I am the man who never entered the room.
Never learned the handshake.
Never needed the chair.
They say lonely like a diagnosis.
I hear it like weather.
Something that happens to other people.
My few.
My chosen.
The ones who never asked me to shrink.
Recognition is a leash
dressed as a medal.
I never reached for it.
My hands were always my own.