I could be you—
the stranger on the corner
clutching cardboard stories,
each wrinkle a chapter
I was too comfortable to read.
I could be you—
the refugee crossing borders
with children and photographs,
leaving behind a universe
that burned while I slept safely.
Through your eyes—an entire world.
Behind your silence: insight.
Within your grief—the harshest
of moments I’ll never know.
I could be you—
the addict, the abandoned,
the one who fell through cracks
I never knew existed
because I was never standing
where the ground swallows you.
One bad day,
one diagnosis, one decision,
one disaster away
from becoming the story
we scroll past without pausing.
So when I see you,
I try to remember:
You are not a headline.
You are someone’s entire world,
and somewhere in the infinite,
in the parallel lines of fate—
I could be you.
And maybe, in your shoes,
I would stumble too,
reach out the same way,
carry the same weight,
wear the same exhaustion
like a second skin.
We are mirrors facing mirrors,
universes recognizing universes,
both hoping someone stops
long enough to see
that behind these eyes
there is always more—
always a life as large
and intricate and irreplaceable
as my own.
