Living in death.

Where you’re very much alive yet unseen.
To the living — family, friends and coworkers, you don’t exist.
They’ll praise and acknowledge one another but when your name is uttered, it’s as though you don’t exist.
It’s as though nothing was expected of you. It’s as though you mean nothing.
They will weep, they will groan and perhaps scream on your dying day but once you’re buried or your ash in the wind…you don’t exist.
I am unseen, unsupported. No acknowledgment of any accomplishments. Endearment is a fleeting thing.
They’ll want you to reach out but won’t respond to a message unless it involves your offspring. Unless you re-enter the fold you chose to abandon, there’s no celebration of anything in regard to your existence. Truly, a Tarnished of no renown.
You. Don’t. Exist. You are the Unseen, one Who Lives in Death. Just a living corpse among them. An outcast whose only refuge is retreating from the very reality that will not embrace you.
You. Don’t. Exist.
They’ll drive near your proximity in days, have your number to call in different ways and yet the relationship stays the same. You’re as one Who Lives In Death and to them…You. Don’t. Exist.
By the time they remember that you do, it’ll be too late. For one with a last name, you’re treated like a bastard who’s been sent away to the Night’s Watch at the wall — to never be seen or heard from again.
You. Don’t. Exist.