Lonely Company

We circle the bar’s noise,

laughter sharp and hollow,

sentences circling without landing.

I sip slow, glass cold,

watch them lean in, inside jokes spilling

like spilled drinks that no one bothers to mop.

Their eyes catch each other’s stories,

while I’m the shadow sitting quiet,

too loud in my stillness,

watching friendship as a stage

where I’m the audience without a part.

A room full of company

that presses down, thicker than silence,

lonelier than empty streets

at three a.m.