roger smith
        
star
I was always the one ignored at parties. Sat quietly in the corner, cross-legged, self-conscious, I'd play with a stray hair on my jeans, sip my drink, try and catch the general drift of the conversation,  smile sometimes like I was enjoying myself, but always ignored. No-one commented, maybe sometimes, next day, next week, someone would open their mouth to me on the street in some accidental meeting, both of us awkward, off-guard, nervously trying to be friendly to someone you don't think you really like, don't think you really know, isn't he that guy who used to? You know. They'd open their mouth and they'd say:
  'You missed Peter's party.'
  'No,' I'd say, 'I was there.' The words barely listened to.
  'Yeah,' they'd say, 'it was a good party, you should have come.' 
It's as if I was invisible, I could be in a room and be so unnoticed I was less than a fly on the wall, less than a beetle on the carpet. Sometimes I'd try and open my mouth, but I was always too soft spoken to be listened to. It's one of those sad facts of life that if you say something quietly it's worthless, but say it in a loud arrogant voice and it's suddenly important, the blandest comment somehow witty and insightful. Worth measured by volume. That was the way things were, teenage nights spent drinking myself into a corner trying to look at ease. Sometimes there'd be a guitar passed around and, sometimes, between a clumsy Yellow Submarine and a three-chord Brown Eyed Girl, sometimes then I'd shine. I'd hit the strings and voice the words and for a moment people would stop the self-obsessed small talk, look at the piece of shit in the corner and wonder if maybe there was something more. For a moment.
  And then the moment would pass. Clutching the neck nervously I'd hand the guitar on to someone who knew all the chords to Smells Like Teen Spirit, sink helplessly into the corner and be ignored again. Always ignored. No-one could ever believe someone like me could ever have something interesting to say. I mean, just look at me.


Of course all that was before.