Vox Meditantis

Not the villain in anyone’s story,
not the hero either –
just the person whose name
slips through conversations
like water through cupped hands.

The one they struggle to recall
at reunions, squinting:
Were you there? Did we – ?
Before the sentence trails
into charitable silence.

I fear the hollow echo
of my own irrelevance,
the way a room’s temperature
doesn’t change when I enter or leave,
the polite nods that mean nothing,
the “Oh yes, of course” that means
they’ve already forgotten again.

To be the extra in someone else’s film,
the blurred face in the background
of their favourite photograph,
the person they once knew
but can’t quite place –

not hated, not loved,
not remembered at all.

Just a space where a person stood,
a chair that might have been empty,
a name that sounds familiar
but signifies nothing,
a life that left no mark
on anyone’s heart or memory.

This is the death I fear most:
not the body’s end,
but the slow erasure
of ever having mattered.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved.