This poem is about being the friend who’s always around but still somehow left out. --------------------------- i’m always in the story, but never in the frame. The one who holds the camera, but never gets a name. I freeze the golden moments, so they can all look back. But no one sees the girl who stood behind the click and flash. They say, "You’ve got the best phone," as if that makes it fair — That I’m not in the memory because I was standing there. They text when they need something, "Hey, send those pics tonight." But never say, “Come join us,” when they’re planning out delight. They laughed and wrote their futures, hid letters in the wall. And no one said, “Hey, come do this,” no one thought to call. I cheered them on with bruises, a knee that couldn't run — Still, I tried to help both sides, but they told me I had none. I told a friend my aching, she told the group instead. One said “sorry,” quietly — as if that cleared the thread. But no one ever asked me how it felt to be unseen. To be a friend in shadows, where no one’s ever been. Yet still I take the pictures, and still I cheer their wins — Hoping one day someone says, “Come be in this one — come in.”
