Instructions from a Child You Didn’t See

“This poem is told in the voice of a child learning how to disappear in plain sight.”

1. Start by holding your breath when someone says your name.

It makes you smaller, like air under a door.

2. Wear the quiet clothes—the ones nobody picks on.

Gray is safest. Navy hides the jelly stains.

Don’t choose yellow. Yellow gets remembered.

3. Sit in the back.

Of the class, the bus, the photo.

Make your knees touch and your hands still.

Fidgeting makes noise.

Noise makes you known.

4. Learn how to laugh when it isn’t funny.

People like that. It keeps them from asking real questions.

Also: learn when not to cry.

5. If you’re hungry, eat slow.

If you’re full, say thank you.

If you don’t like it, smile anyway.

Disappearing kids never complain.

6. Shrink your stories.

Forget the dragons. Forget the girl who saved them.

Forget the broken thing you fixed.

Only talk when someone asks you.

Only answer half.

7. Practice being furniture.

Corners are good. Closets are better.

A laundry pile can make you invisible.

So can the silence between arguing adults.

8. If someone touches you wrong, forget it quick.

Swallow it like a penny.

Keep it in your belly where grownups can’t see.

They never want to.

9. Love everything too much.

The broken doll. The stray dog.

The teacher who said your name nice once.

Love it so much it hurts—

because hurting means you’re still here.

10. Then… stop expecting anyone to notice.

Even when you do the right thing.

Even when you win.

Even when you scream with your eyes.

Final Step:

Make yourself so small

they trip over you

and still don’t say sorry.