One Empty Seat
by Yilin S, 14
It took a pound of flesh
And yet another classmate deciding to jump
For the atmosphere to change
Voices are lowered, deadlines loosened, tears flow.
Compassion and empathy unfolds in hours
Pulled from a drawer marked ‘emergency’
Now they tell us to breathe
To rest
As if rest was never rationed in the past,
As if exhaustion wasn’t an unspoken language
That travels in the hallways.
Kindness arrives with sirens
on the train tracks where my classmates jump
It enters the room only after something breaks,
Loud and undeniable,
Instead of living quietly
In the corners of the halls
The pressure was never invisible.
It lived in worth:
Percentages, rankings, the fragile economy of praise.
It lived in the ritual of “I’m fine!”
Performed it so often it sounded real
Simply put, it’s an eye for an eye.
Harm birthing harm,
Confidence surrenders itself from every comment,
Until it can no longer be ignored.
Mercy isn’t the outcome they want,
Nor do they want care or memories of the leftover bits.
I always return to the ordinary faces that walk under fluorescent lights,
Laughter and chatter caught between classes,
But someone's quieter than usual,
And no one asks why.
I wonder what language we missed.
What signals went untranslated.
How many apologies were rehearsals
Just to disappear.
I knew that instinct at one time.
To soften your presence,
To shrink needs into something manageable,
To mistake strength for silence.
I know how humor can camouflage hurt,
How self-erasure can masquerade as politeness,
How a person can begin to believe
That their existence is an inconvenience.
There was a time
I thought the same,
That the world might function more smoothly
Without the friction of me in it.
What I needed then
Wasn’t a solution or another lecture,
But a hand on my back,
A sincere voice.
I know it’s too late but
Stay.
I am incapable of grieving for one I didn’t know,
But the distance between us,
The moments where opportunities for care might have lived,
If we had been taught
Maybe someone, anyone, would have noticed.
This is a challenge.
That empathy arrives posthumously
That systems learn only
After the cost is irreversible.
Care should be ordinary.
It should live in our daily grammar.
Of how we speak to one another.
Have you slept?
Did you eat?
I love your shirt!
I’m here for you.
Not as an intervention,
Not as special treatment,
As a culture,
A habit,
A promise.
You will see them tomorrow.
You will think nothing of it.
That’s how people vanish,
Not all at once,
But slowly,
In plain sight,
While the world keeps moving
Until something breaks again
