sonder — the vivid lives of strangers

A poem

Photo credit: Pexels image by Sami Abdullah

It arrives suddenly — in the middle of a crowd, or at a red light, watching faces cross the street like constellations that forgot their names.

Each one a whole weather system — grief, laughter, longing, folded neatly beneath a jacket, carried home on tired feet.

You realise then — no one is in the background. Every passing stranger is the main character in a story unfolding just out of view.

The woman with the cracked phone — she’s reading the last message her brother ever sent. The boy on the bus — he’s rewriting his future between songs in his earbuds.

And you — you are just another heartbeat in the grand quiet hum of a world that never stops telling itself stories in millions of voices.

Not the stars, but the brief, aching knowing that every light you see is burning.

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Source of inspiration: This particular piece is based on one of the words listed in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and explores the feeling of how deeply unknowable, and yet familiar, we all are.