Crowded Silence

We sat in tight circles,

faces aglow from phones,

a chorus of half-heard jokes

lost behind glassy zones.

Laughter spilled, but I felt

like a shadow in the room,

shrinking in the blue light,

a single thread of gloom.

Hands touched like strangers’ might,

words broke but did not land,

a party built from absence,

a desert made of sand.