How does it feel not to have a voice?
Helplessness has always been an emotion familiar to me. Even on those rare days when everything goes perfectly, where luck surrounds me, when I receive good news and it feels that the world has righted itself, I just know things will go bad soon enough.
I feel untethered without helplessness because it is all I know. It is what I am used to. So I do not like when good things happen because they seem like mockery, since it never lasts. So helplessness is a close friend, and I do not know what to do without it. I know you are wondering why I keep hammering on this concept called helplessness; it is because it is a significant part of me.
This same helplessness covered me and kept me company amidst the cramped space under the canopy where I took shelter when the heavy downpour started. I was the first to get there, but not long after, I was pushed to the part where even with the cover, a substantial part of the downpour still found its way to my small frame.
"Mr, Miss! Please can you stop pushing me?" I said this, trying to get the attention of the inhabitants under the canopy. Not that it did me any good.
"Did anyone hear anything?" one man muttered. He had a beer gut and looked like he had just barely escaped a battle. His shirt was torn, he had scratches on his face, and his hair looked unkempt.
"No," replied the woman beside him. She looked somewhat out of place with her Hermès bag, perfectly executed makeup, and put-together pose that had only been a bit shaken by the downpour. Others murmured their agreement about not hearing anything. I was used to this though; I don't know why I ever bothered. They didn't hear me. No one ever hears me.
The rain eventually subsided, and I continued my journey to a place I liked to refer to as the "place where I could rest my head." I was soaked, and the tar was wet. I eventually arrived, and before I even got through the door, voices drifted towards me. They were voices that held love and acceptance, an illusion I must imagine because those feelings were never extended towards me.
Hey," I muttered, knowing fully well no one would hear me. The voices continued drifting from the living room, my parents engrossed in their world as always. I stood there, water dripping from my clothes, another invisible moment in a lifetime of being unseen.
I stood at the doorway lost in thought, perhaps I'd always been this way, even before I understood what it meant to be heard. When I was ten, I remember screaming at the top of my lungs in a crowded parking lot, testing if anyone would notice. They didn't. Not even when I stood right in front of them, waving my arms like a drowning person seeking rescue. It was as if the universe had decided that my voice would be perpetually caught in some void between speaking and being heard.
"We should book that cruise for next month, darling," Mom's voice rang clear and excited, cutting through my thoughts. She sat perched on our pristine white couch, her posture perfect as always, every hair in place. I watched her - really watched her - and noticed how her voice never waivered, like she was sure that everything she spoke held weight. "I've already talked to my yoga instructor about covering my classes. She says the timing is perfect."
"Perfect timing too," Dad chimed in from his leather armchair, the same one he'd sat in every evening for as long as I could remember, creating a permanent impression of his presence. "The firm's been less demanding lately. Though I might need to take a few calls while we're there. The Morrison account needs constant attention." His words carried the weight of someone who'd never doubted his existence.
I stood there, observing these two people who had given me life but somehow couldn't perceive my existence. It wasn't that they didn't want to hear me - it was almost as if they couldn't. Like I existed in a frequency just slightly off from the rest of the world. My parents loved me but I do not think they know me.
The rain from earlier had soaked through my clothes, making me feel even more insubstantial, as if I might dissolve completely into the air. Sometimes I wondered if that's what was happening - if I was slowly fading away, becoming less real with each unheard word, each unseen gesture.
"I was thinking," Mom continued, her French manicure tapping against her iPad screen, "maybe we could take advantage of the special people program they have onboard-"
"I don't want to go on a cruise," I said, my voice as loud as I could. "I have that art exhibition next month, remember? I told you about it last week." The words felt like they were being spoken underwater, bubbles of truth rising to a surface they'd never break.
"-they say it's excellent for people of their character. Really helps them socialize," Mom went on as if I hadn't spoken. As if I wasn't even there. Her eyes skated past me like I was made of mist. "The program director said they have wonderful activities..."
"That's settled then," Dad declared, tapping away at his phone. "I'll book it tonight. Three tickets."
Three tickets. As if I was just an extension of their reality, not a separate being with my desires, dreams, and voice. The familiar weight of helplessness settled over me like a second skin, heavy with years of unspoken truths and unheard words. This helplessness wasn't just an emotion - it was a fundamental truth of my being.
I dragged myself upstairs, leaving wet footprints on their immaculate carpet. Each step felt heavier than the last as if gravity itself was conspiring to pull me further into nonexistence. My room was the only space where I felt I could breathe, where my art could speak the words I couldn't. The walls were covered in sketches - abstract pieces full of shadow and light, portraits of faces that understood silence, landscapes of places where being seen wasn't just a dream.
My art has always been my attempt to make myself real, to create tangible proof of my existence. Each stroke of the pencil, each splash of color was a scream into the unknown: "I am here! I exist!" But even these silent screams seemed to fade into the background noise, lost in the static of everyday life.
When I reached the doorway, everything stopped. My laptop lay on the floor, screen cracked beyond repair, surrounded by scattered papers and art supplies. Through the spiderweb of cracks, I could see the black screen mocking me. Three years of digital art. Gone. All my writings, my stories, my sketches - everything that gave my life substance, were destroyed.
I looked around, my room looked eerily clean. Then and there I pictured what must have happened in my head. My Mom had most likely been "tidying up", moved my laptop to dust, forgotten about it, and knocked it off the desk while vacuuming. Just another reminder of how insubstantial my presence was in their reality. The broken screen seemed like a representation of my life- fractured and unable to showcase what it had created.
"Mom? Dad?" I called out, my voice trembling. "My laptop... it's broken." The words felt like they were being spoken into a vacuum, disappearing before they could reach anyone's ears.
Their conversation continued downstairs, punctuated by occasional laughter. They were discussing vacation activities now - snorkeling, couples' massage, sunset dinners. The sound of their voices, so clear and present, made the silence that surrounded mine even more deafening.
"Please," I tried again, louder this time. "Can you hear me? My laptop..." The question hung in the air like smoke, visible perhaps, but dissipating before anyone could acknowledge its presence.
I fell to my knees beside the broken machine, gathering the scattered papers with shaking hands. Most were ruined, ink bleeding to the screen from the fall, pencil sketches smudged beyond recognition. There was something sadly poetic about it. However what was not poetic was my attempts to make myself real, literally dissolving before my eyes.
One drawing remained partially intact - a self-portrait I'd been working on. In it, my figure was depicted as semi-transparent, the background showing through my form like I was made of glass. At the time, I'd thought I was being metaphorical. Now it felt more like a prophecy.
Hours passed. The sun set. The darkness crept in, bringing with it the kind of silence that feels alive, that pulses with the weight of all the words never spoken, all the truths never acknowledged. I heard Mom and Dad discussing dinner plans downstairs, their voices floating up like they were coming from another dimension entirely.
"Should we call them down?" Dad asked absently.
"Oh, they're probably working on their computer thing again," Mom replied. "You know how they get with their little hobby. Though I do wish they'd focus more on real things."
Real things. As if my art wasn't real. As if I wasn't real. Their words carved new hollows in my already empty chest. My art wasn't just a hobby - it was my attempt to anchor myself in reality, to prove that I existed beyond the shadows and silence that seemed to follow me everywhere.
At that point, I decided I needed to leave. The decision to leave wasn't really a decision at all. It was an acknowledgement of what I'd known for years - I couldn't exist in this space of perpetual unreality anymore. This house had never been a home. These people had never been parents, not really. They were just two beings who happened to occupy the same physical space as a ghost - a voiceless, invisible being who might as well not exist.
I packed a bag with what little I had left. Some clothes, my sketchbook, and the few art supplies that hadn't been ruined. Each item I packed felt like it might disappear the moment I looked away, like everything associated with me was tainted with the same unreality that plagued my existence.
I wrote a note, though I doubted they'd notice it for days: "I'm leaving. Not that you'll hear this either, but I can't stay where my voice doesn't exist. Where I don't exist. Maybe someday I'll find a way to be real. Maybe someday I'll learn how to exist in a way that others can perceive. But I can't keep fading away here."
"I'm going out," I announced to the empty hallway, the words falling like dead leaves in autumn. As expected, there was no response from downstairs, just the continued murmur of their self-contained world.
The night embraced me as I stepped outside, its darkness feeling more substantial than I did. At least the night had presence, weight, secrets, it had a voice. At least the darkness could touch things, could change them. All I seemed to do was pass through life like I wasn’t there at all, leaving no mark, making no impact.
The streets were wet from the earlier rain, streetlights creating halos that reflected off the puddles. I caught glimpses of myself in these watery mirrors - fragmented, distorted reflections that seemed more accurate than any clear mirror had ever shown me. Was this how others saw me, when they saw me at all? This collection of broken pieces, barely holding together in the shape of a person?
I tried hailing a bus, my arm raised in what felt like a futile gesture. The first two drove past, their drivers' eyes sliding over me like I was just another shadow on the street. The third one stopped, but only because a group of teenagers was boarding at the same time. I followed them on, their loud voices and solid presence making me feel even more invisible in comparison.
"Central Station," I tried telling the driver. He stared right through me, continuing his conversation with a passenger about the weather. I ended up getting off when most others did, finding myself in an unfamiliar part of town. Perhaps it was fitting - one unknown entity in an unknown place.
The next few weeks blurred together like watercolors in the rain. I stayed in cheap motels when I could afford them, sleeping in parks when I couldn't. I tried finding work, but how do you interview for jobs when your voice dissolves before it reaches anyone's ears? How do you prove your existence to potential employers when you can barely prove it to yourself?
I attempted to sell my art on the street, setting up my remaining sketches on cardboard boxes. People would sometimes stop, look at the drawings, and even pick them up. But when they tried to find the artist, their eyes would skip right over me, as if the art had manifested itself out of thin air. One woman even called the police, concerned about "abandoned artwork" on the street. I packed up and left before they arrived, wondering if they would have been able to see me either.
Depression settled over me like a heavy fog, making me feel even less substantial. There were days when I wondered if I was actually dead, if I had died at some point and just hadn't realized it. Was this what ghosts felt like? This perpetual state of being neither here nor there, neither seen nor unseen, neither alive nor dead?
My existence became a series of questions without answers: If a person speaks but no one hears them, do they have a voice? If someone exists but no one sees them, are they real? If a life goes unwitnessed, does it count as having been lived at all?
One particularly cold evening, after another day of failed attempts at being seen, I found myself in a small park. The bench I chose was weathered, its wood grain exposed by years of rain and sun. I ran my fingers along the rough surface, feeling more kinship with this inanimate object than I had with any human in recent memory.
"At least you're good company," I said aloud, patting the bench. "Though I'm sure if you could talk, everyone would hear you just fine. Unlike me."
"I don't know about that," a voice replied, making me jump. "This bench has probably seen as many ignored souls as you have rainy days."
I turned to find someone sitting beside me - I hadn't even heard them approach. Their hair was a shocking pink, styled in a way that defied gravity and convention alike. They wore an outfit that seemed to be fighting a war between neon green and neon blue, each color trying to outshout the other. Under different circumstances, I might have reached for my sketchbook; they were exactly the kind of vibrant character I loved to draw. Someone whose existence was so loud it couldn't be ignored.
"Don't worry," I said, more to myself than to them, a bitter smile playing on my lips. "I'm sure unlike me, people hear you just fine with that amazing aesthetic you've got going. You're real enough for both of us."
They let out a laugh - sarcastic but somehow warm, like honey mixed with lime. "But I can hear you just fine. And might I say, your aesthetic is pretty amazing too, in that ghost-who's-tired-of-haunting kind of way."
I froze. Then slowly turned to face them again, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might break through. "You... you can hear me?"
"Clear as day," they grinned, extending a hand covered in rainbow rings. "I'm Phoenix. And you look like someone who knows what it's like to be a shadow in a world that only believes in light."
The name hit me like a physical force. Phoenix - the bird that burns to ash only to rise again. How appropriate for someone who seemed to burn with such intensity.
"I'm..." I started, then realized I hadn't spoken my name aloud in so long, I had almost forgotten how it felt in my mouth. "I'm Marcus," I whispered, then cleared my throat and said it again, louder. The sound of my name in the air felt strange like finding a piece of yourself you'd forgotten existed.
"Well, Marcus," Phoenix's grin widened, "want to tell me your story? I've got time, and contrary to popular belief, some of us are pretty good at hearing the things others miss."
So I told them everything. About the rain, the canopy, the broken laptop, the parents who never heard. About feeling like a ghost in my own life. About the art that no one seemed to see, the words that no one seemed to hear. About questioning my own existence, wondering if I'd somehow slipped through a crack in reality.
With each word, something strange happened. Phoenix listened -he kept listening- he really listened - nodding at times, frowning at others, but always engaged, always present.
"You know what your problem is?" Phoenix said when I finally fell silent. "You've been trying to exist in other people's realities instead of creating your own."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," they leaned back, their neon outfit creating a strange glow in the growing dusk, "that voice isn't something you're given. It's something you create. Your parents, those people under the canopy, the bus drivers - they couldn't hear you because you weren't speaking. You were asking permission to be heard."
I thought deeply about those words and then asked, "But how do you create a voice when the world seems determined not to hear it?"
Phoenix's smile became more confident, their pink hair catching the last rays of sunlight like a corona. "You know what Marcus, why don’t I just show you how? I run this little art collective downtown. We call it 'The Void' - partly because it's in an old warehouse basement, but mostly because over the years, it has become a haven where plenty of lost voices have come to gather. The ones society pretends not to hear, the ones that scream into emptiness, the ones that haven't learned how to exist yet. Sounds like you might fit right in."
"But... my portfolio is gone. My laptop-"
"So we'll help you build a new one," Phoenix shrugged, as if rebuilding one's being was as simple as mixing new colors. "Better, even. Sometimes you need to lose your voice entirely to find out what it's supposed to sound like."
That night, Phoenix took me to meet their collective. The space was a converted warehouse basement, true to their word, but it was unlike any void I'd ever seen. Every surface held some form of art - murals that seemed to move in the shifting light, sculptures that looked like they defied physics and installations that played with reality in ways that made my head spin. However, what struck me most was the sound.
The space was alive with voices - some loud, some soft, some speaking, some singing, some just existing in their unique way. And none of them seemed to need permission to be heard.
"Hey everyone let us welcome a new member home," Phoenix announced to the room, and suddenly all those voices turned toward us. However, instead of feeling overwhelmed or invisible as I usually did in crowds, I felt... seen. Really seen, perhaps for the first time.
"This is Marcus," Phoenix continued. "He's been living as a ghost, but he's ready to become real."
A tall person with chestnut hair and stained fingers stepped forward. "We all start as ghosts," he said, his voice carrying the weight of experience. "Some of us just take longer to materialize than others."
Another artist, her arms covered in intricate tattoos that seemed to tell stories, nodded. "The world tries to make us fade away, but art? Art makes us solid."
After that, they all took turns welcoming me and introducing themselves. Offering me beverages and asking for my opinion on their art. I basked in all of this, I knew I had gotten to where I needed to be.
Over the following months, The Void became my anchor to reality. I learned that voice isn't just about being heard - it's about believing you have something worth saying. The collective taught me new forms of art I'd never dreamed of trying. I learned to work with spray paint, creating murals that couldn't be ignored. I sculpted with found objects, turning trash into statements about existence and perception. I experimented with installation art, creating spaces where others could experience what it felt like to be unheard, and unseen. Day after day with the collective, that familiar feeling of helplessness I once had became a very foreign concept to me. I was happy and I was free. Ironically, ‘The Void’ filled me with life.
On the day that marked the sixth month following the arrival at The Void, Phoenix announced that there was going to be an exhibition to showcase ourselves and to make the world finally hear us. This announcement gained positive feedback and incredible momentum. I was not surprised, Phoenix is a force to be reckoned with and an amazing friend. “Hey, Marcus!” Phoenix called and greeted me while offering me a drink, “think you are ready for this?. I feel you are, but if you aren’t there is no need to rush”.I replied to them with a full-blown smile, knowing that they did not doubt me one bit and just wanted to make sure I was doing good. “I might not have been born ready Phoenix, but I have built myself to be ready. Let’s get this!”. Phoenix’s hearty laughter did not disappoint.
After thorough research and dedication, I created a series called "Quantum Existence", which explored installations exploring the space between being and nothingness. The centerpiece was a room filled with mirrors and speakers, where viewers' reflections would fade in and out while their voices echoed back to them in increasingly distorted ways. It was my experience of unreality made tangible, turned into something others could understand.
The exhibition opening at The Void drew crowds larger than any of us expected. My installations filled the main space, each piece a chapter in the story of my dissolution and reformation. As I watched people interact with my work, I realized something profound - they weren't just seeing the art, they were experiencing my silence, my invisibility, my journey to existence. And in understanding it, they were making me real.
My parents came too. Phoenix had somehow found them, though they never told me how. They stood now before my centerpiece installation - "Quantum Vacuum" - where their reflections flickered between solid and transparent while their voices bounced back to them in increasingly distorted ways until they couldn't distinguish their own words from the silence.
I watched them from across the room as they experienced what it had felt like to be their son. Mom's perfect posture crumbled slightly as she pressed her hand against one of the mirrors, watching it pass through her reflection. Dad's confident stance wavered as he heard his voice fade into nothingness.
"Marcus," Mom said when they finally found me, my name sounding different on her tongue - like she was tasting it for the first time. "We... we never heard you, did we?"
"No," I replied, my voice clear and strong, no longer seeking permission to exist. "But I had to learn to hear myself first."
Dad reached out, then let his hand fall. "Can you... can you teach us how to listen?"
I looked at them, these people who had been my parents in name but never in practice. Then at Phoenix, who nodded encouragingly. At my new family of artists and misfits, all watching supportively. "Yes," I said finally. "But this time, you'll have to want to hear more than just what you expect to hear."
The reconciliation wouldn't be easy - years of silence don't dissolve overnight. But at least now there was a chance for real dialogue, for actual understanding. They were learning to see me as I was, not as they'd imagined me to be.
As the night wound down, I found myself in a quiet corner of the gallery, sketching ideas for new pieces. The creative flow felt different now - more like a conversation than a scream into the unknown.
"Those are incredible concepts," a voice said, and for the first time in my life, I didn't question whether it was speaking to me.
I looked up to find a young man about my age, with warm brown eyes and an artist's paint-stained hands. "Thanks," I replied, my voice coming naturally, easily. "I'm Marcus."
"Ash," he smiled, pointing to my sketchbook. "The way you're playing with negative space there - it's like you're drawing with the silence itself."
Something flickered in my chest - it was something akin to a recognition, a possibility. Here was someone who could see not just the art, but the space around it, the silence that gave it meaning. We talked for hours that night, about art and existence and the spaces in between, our voices clear and present in the gallery's quiet.
As I headed home that night - to my small apartment above The Void, my new home - I thought about voice, about existence, about being heard. I thought about Phoenix and the collective, about my parents learning to listen, about Ash and the way he saw the silence in my art as clearly as the lines.
My phone buzzed with a text from Ash: "Coffee tomorrow? I want to hear more about your thoughts on quantum existence in art."
I smiled, typing back a simple "Yes." Because now I knew - voice isn't something you're given or something you find. Voice is something you become, something you grow into, like a plant growing toward light. And once you find it, really find it, every word carries the weight of your entire existence.
I may not know where this new chapter leads - with my art, with my parents, with Ash - but for the first time in my life, I know I'll be heard when I speak about it. Because finally, gloriously, my voice doesn't echo into emptiness anymore.
It resonates.
And somewhere in the quantum space between being and nothingness, between speaking and being heard, between existing and being seen, I've found something better than a voice.
I've found myself.
