The Math

I walked in and everyone was

mid-twenties, laughing about things

I'd never heard of, wearing

things I didn't understand were clothes.

I was wearing the wrong thing.

I was wearing the wrong age.

Someone caught my eye for a second

and I saw the moment they did the math—

counted backward from my face,

from the lines, from the way

the light hit me different than it hit them,

and decided.

I was old enough to be their mother.

It wasn't said.

It was just there in that look,

in the way they turned back

to their friends,

in the way I became background,

in the way the room

reorganized itself

without me.

I stood at the bar

and ordered a drink

and felt myself disappear.

Not in a poetic way.

In a real way.

In the way that makes you understand

that you've crossed some invisible line

and now you're the thing

people have to politely include,

the thing that's present

but not quite there,

the thing that made the room

slightly quieter

when you arrived.

My reflection in the bar mirror

showed me flanked by people

a decade younger,

and my face was the only one

that looked like it was giving away

information—

age, tiredness, the specific

weariness that comes from

being outside

for too long.

I didn't want this math.

I didn't want to be

the oldest person in the room.

I didn't want to feel myself

become the thing

that makes people shift,

become the background,

become the reason

the music got quieter.

But I was.

And I did.

And now I know what it feels like

to be invisible

in a room full of light.