I walked past the building yesterday

I walked past the building yesterday

and didn't recognize it,

or I did,

but it looked like every other building,

five stories, brick,

a door that opens onto the street,

nothing special,

nothing marked,

nothing that says:

a child lived here,

a child thought this was the entire world,

a child believed

that this corner

meant something.

The street number is the same.

The crowd passes the same way.

Nobody stops.

Nobody remembers.

There's no plaque.

There's no indication

that this address

was ever

anything

to anyone.

I used to think

the city would keep track,

that the buildings would hold

the weight of the lives

that happened inside them,

that the streets would remember

the children who walked them,

that mattering

was automatic,

that existing here

meant you mattered.

I was wrong.

The city is full

of places where things happened

that nobody recorded,

where people lived

and died

and left

and the city

just stayed the same,

indifferent,

moving forward,

already forgetting.

I keep walking.

The building stays behind me,

still just a building,

still meaning nothing

to anyone

but me.