I still feel it you know. The way my stomach just dropped. It was like I swallowed a handful of those little gravel rocks and they all just scraped down inside me, every single day, every day. It happened like a month ago, maybe more. We were at my aunt’s place, big family thing. You know how it is. Loud, everyone yelling over each other, too many kids running around. My mom made me go. Said it was important. I was just trying to keep my head down, play games on my phone under the table. Like, duh. Then someone, an adult, like, one of those super old people, started talking. He was just talking, right? About how things used to be. About how, like, you had to *work* for stuff, and how it was different now. Like he was trying to give advice. He was kinda waving his hands, like, trying to get people to look. Like he had this big thing to say. And literally NO ONE looked up. Not one person. My cousin was still scrolling TikTok, my uncle was watching some dumb sports highlight. My aunt was just staring at her own phone, like, totally blank face. My mom was texting someone, I could see her thumb moving fast. No one even made a sound. Just the clicking and tapping from everyone’s screens. And it was just… quiet after he stopped talking. Like, the whole room just swallowed what he said. And he just stood there for a sec. He looked like he shrunk. Like someone just pulled the air out of him. And then he just kinda sat down, super slow, like an old tree falling. And he just looked at his hands after that. For the rest of the night. Just his hands. I felt it then. That awful feeling. Like a cold stone in my chest. It was so bad. I couldn’t look at him. I just couldn’t. And I couldn’t look at anyone else either. Cause I was doing it too. I was one of them. Just sitting there, pretending my phone was more important than whatever he was trying to say. Whatever that thing was. And now I keep thinking about it. Every single day, every day. Like, what if that happens to me? What if I’m old and tired and I have something important to say, something I learned, and everyone just… doesn’t care? Just looks down? Just keeps scrolling? Like I’m invisible or something. Like I’m just air. It makes my throat feel tight. Like a fist is squeezing it. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be the one who gets ignored. I don't want to be the one who ignores. But what if I already am? What if I already did it? It makes me sick just thinking about it. I try not to think about it but it just comes back. When I see someone staring at their phone, when I feel myself doing it. That feeling. That awful, awful feeling. Like the bottom dropped out of everything. And I don’t even know what to do about it.