Invisibility - Feb 7 2025

 

Invisibility

Feb 7 2025



Invisibility

is my superpower.

I would have preferred flight

but no one offered

and it seems impractical.

Invisible, not immaterial;

I haven't faded into the ether

and I interact with light.

It’s more like anonymous

  — unnoticed

inconsequential

not easily remembered.

Or like lost in the crowd,

if it's not ghosting through life

then it's peering in

through one-way glass.

I dress down.

I’m of average height.

I’m the photograph

they put in new wallets,

so generic

you give it a glance and forget.

And well past my prime,

so like all people of a certain age

can pretty much go anywhere

and not be seen.

Except it’s been this way forever.

I seem to have learned early on

to make myself small and speak quietly,

ask apologetically

and not for much.

If I could only dress stylishly

flamboyantly

suggestively

and not feel ridiculous.

If I could only have it both ways

  — make a strong impression

then vanish in a snap.

And if I could only pass through walls

then things would be different;

I might even reconsider

the allure of flight.

Did I chose invisibility?

Could I simply reinvent myself

as an act of will?

Or was I born to it,

my camouflage as natural

as a small brown frog

in a fetid swamp?

Which is about as glamorous

as invisibility gets.

I look up

at all the high flyers and gaudy birds,

a little envious

a little admiring,

but mostly baffled

by how they manage it.

How the extroverts

and brash self-promoters,

the attractive set

who know they are,

and the glad-handers, backslappers, and fellow-well-mets

with a swagger in their step

spread their wings,

defy gravity,

have the world at their feet;

looking effortless,

and going wherever they please.

How they ascend to untold heights,

majestic hawks

on outstretched wings

riding a thermal and looking at ease.

From where, looking down

the rest of us are little black ants

you couldn't tell apart,

condemned to life on the ground

scuttling this way and that.

You would step on

without a thought.

Would never notice

if one went missing

or wasn't there from the start.

And soon don’t see at all.

Just part of the scenery;

as invisible

as extras on a movie set

passing through the frame.

I’m always surprised when — in that whimsical party game of binary choices — people choose invisibility over the ability to fly.

First, I laugh at myself, thinking I already am invisible, I already have that superpower. There’s nothing super about it!

And second, the only attraction I can see in true invisibility is to be a voyeur: lurking about, spying on people, intruding on intimate acts. What else can you do with it except something that would be shameful to do as yourself?

Now, about that wallet photograph: I’m more idiosyncratic than generic, and hardly handsome enough to qualify. So I’m not delusional. It’s just that the analogy works, so why not a little poetic license here and there?