all over, I see people.

all over, I see people— the small glimpses first: a person stepping off the curb as the light blinks red, someone mumbling into a phone, another brushing past me with the hurriedness of a life I’ll never know.
I see them in passing gestures, in nods, in the brief choreography of bodies moving through morning air; little sparks of existence stroking the edges of my own.
then larger— people in the lattice of systems, their hands hidden inside the seams of machines, their breath tucked behind the logos on my clothes, their thoughts soldered into screens I touch each day.
I see them in highways, in glass towers, in the quiet architecture of what the world produces and consumes. so many traces, stitched into the hiddeness of the ordinary.
and then closer— people in the warmth of giving, in a voice softening for a stranger, in patience offered with no receipt, in love that spills without needing applause.
people in the ways they shelter each other, in how understanding can bend and not break.
but I see the other things too— the sharpness, the spit of cruelty, the eyes that pass over care as if it were nothing, the hands that close instead of open.
I see the indifference that drifts like cold air between us, the shadows we cast when we forget we are made of the same frail matter.
and still— all over, I see people.
everywhere, in small and vast and personal ways.
they must be more decent than unkind— they must be, or else the world would collapse in on itself, a symptom of chaos with no one left to stitch us together.
but all over, I see people.