📝 The Quiet Count
The words escape them, fleeting, quick and slight,
A casual “friend,” a breath upon the air.
A convenient emblem, shining in the light,
But utterly vacant when true burdens bear.

The sun-drenched moments made the title easy,
A fashionable accessory for all to don,
But in the silence, when the world grew hazy,
The fragile tie that held them proved undone.

When the harsh fever gripped me, cold and deep,
And a thick curtain of despair descended low,
While the wide world was safely fast asleep,
The names they boasted felt like phantom snow.

The multitude of vows they’d freely made
Were exposed for what they truly were: mere trade.
A cruel calculation, bought and then resold,
For only the barest fraction cared to call.

A digital whisper, a short text, faint and few,
A brief, uncertain spark against the gathering night.
The many voices that asserted that they knew
Simply vanished, eclipsed by shadows’ might.

My makeshift sickroom was a lonely tomb,
And they, the vibrant ghosts who wouldn’t share the gloom.
I picture them now, the laughter bright and strong,
Their glossy images emblazoned everywhere,

And the harsh, clear truth of where I don’t belong
Strikes with the certainty of chilled, vacant air.
They spin their narratives, both dazzling and loud,
And in their hurried chronicles, a mention flits,

A distant, chilling resonance within the crowd,
As my memory into the past slowly transmits.
The fast, unforgiving current of their days
Sweeps them onward, leaving me a fading haze.

I was a footnote, a forgotten, minor scene,
Now pushed aside by brighter, more compelling sheen.
The intimacy they claimed was but a lie,
A simple piece of scenery they let drift by.

So let the vast machinery of life turn on,
Let them find pleasure in their bustling, self-made world.
My period of painful self-deception is now gone;
The flag of my true solitude has been unfurled.

I’ve met the piercing truth, and there’s no turning back:
I am the one who isn’t here, a silent, missing track.
I have been edited out, a frame cut from the reel,
A ghost inhabiting the spaces where they feel.

And in this quiet haven, this deserted room,
Where the walls listen and the shadows softly creep,
I sit and learn the texture of my newfound bloom,
The quiet dignity the deeply wounded keep.

For in the harsh, raw landscape of this fading light,
Where vanity and false pretense cannot remain,
I’ve sculpted out a solitary space, pure and white,
A quiet harbor safe from any transient pain.

I stand alone, a fact I must completely face,
The few dear souls who checked, I hold them close and tight.
But for the bulk, the swiftly passing, loud-mouthed race,
The thunder of their grand claim is hard to hear in the night.

Their grand pronouncements of unwavering devotion
Are stripped of substance, a hollow, mocking notion.
The silence speaks louder than their fleeting sound,
And in that silence, genuine peace is found.

More Works by Nancy Ann Creed

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