Never Were - Jan 10 2022

 

Never Were

Jan 10 2022

When someone goes missing

we suspect foul play.

But what if they don’t want to be found?

What if they've drawn the shades

left the phone unanswered

ignored the knock on the door?

Hunkered down

behind the parapets?

Time out, time away.

So how long does it take

to become official?

How far gone

and how untraceable?

And if it's duly noted, but dismissed

have they really disappeared?

And what if they aren't even missed?

That they were absent, anyway

whether or not they'd stayed,

too insignificant

to bother with.

No picture in the paper

no breaking down the door,

because no one ever noticed

or cared.

Invisible, instead of missed,

a figment, a whim.

And not even a person anymore.

Because human beings

are social creatures

who must be seen to exist.

Who only truly are

in the eyes of others,

and begin to feel unreal, disembodied

in an atomized world of one.

So not missing

not a person.

Aren't, and never were

    . . .  and no one to return.

Every day, in the headline version of local news that appears in my inbox, there is invariably a picture of a missing person. Before I started receiving this daily email, I had no idea. So it seemed about time for me to try noodling around with this expression.

We all know from the movies that there is a low police priority given to these incidents: people are adults and are free to disappear, after all; so unless foul play is suspected, their absence is highly uncharacteristic, or it's been an inordinately long time, any report will be duly noted, then ignored.

So when does one officially become a "Missing Person ?"

What if all you want is to disappear, but they keep insisting on pulling you back?

And what if you aren't even missed at all?