Perspectives: A Poetic Narrative of Sonder

Sabrina

 

There must be something wrong with me, the way I keep taking missteps and languishing in my anguish

Why didn’t he stay? Was it something I did? A wrongfully placed string of words conveyed on my eager lips? Some sputtering of offensive understandings under false pretenses?

What did I do wrong? How do I keep messing up and fucking — 

Fuck he’s here God why now what did I do to deserve this pain?

How can he exist in the same space I’ve cleaned and scrubbed and bleached him out of?

This isn’t for him to have or sit or be; it’s mine, of which I’ve grabbed and pried and broken off

I wish I could muster the words for my discontent more wisely, I wish I could stand there and scream 

LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME

I scream, my lungs filling the stuffy air of the crowded bus, echoing and embedding through the cabin and into the ears of the girl with the green backpack and even the boy with the headphones on and Jesus, even the freak on the phone in the back

But they don’t hear anything because I am quiet and I am shaking and I sit down to stabilize my body that's excreting sweat and holding back tears

How could this be happening, holy –

I can’t even think, my vision is blurry, the tears are breaking loose from the dam I fortified 

I cannot cry here, everyone will see my weakness, and they’ll know, how could it not be obvious 

LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME - I CAN’T BREATHE

Shh, you can do this, just focus on something, not him

My wandering eyes latch onto the buttons scattered across the backpack of the girl across from me

“I love making boys cry” one of them reads

Fuck the irony, that I am here, alone and sobbing while she has the gaul to rub it in my face 

Can’t she read the look on my face, can’t she see my pain?

My chest feels empty, the space that was his is just a reminder of the time wasted and the feelings unreciprocated

How is he driving this bus??

This is my bus and my school and my town 

And we are over because he was selfish and I was selfless

And he deserved it but I didn’t and now I’m the one about to cry on the bus he is driving and

He is a piece of shit and I honestly don’t care that his mommy never loved him

Because neither did I

I’m such a fucking liar.

 

Melody

 

Bad things happen to good people, Mama always used to say that

She would know, with her litany of unkept promises and broken engagements 

Secrets she kept in the box under her bed, under a pile of old photographs, a ring, a box of matches, and an old tube of lip gloss

Papa probably knew, with his soft tone and caressing hands

Soothing Mama’s painful wounds and stitching her up when she came loose

There’s something about her secrets that I still feel, even when I don’t live there anymore and I haven’t had to think about the secret box 

Daniel and I are done, he told me this morning when we met for coffee

We just aren’t working anymore

Quiet in my amusement that he somehow figured I didn’t look for his own secret box in the cabinet of his bathroom, which cradles one missing earring, its pair off in some other bathroom cabinet, I assume

Dangling with its silver plating and ruby gem sitting sternly in the center, mocking my existence, my unpierced lobes

My feet are heavy and my knees knock together as the boy with the headphones bumps me

Watch it

I barely grumble

He says something back but I don’t listen

A girl rushing past him steals my attention as she hurls herself into the seat across from mine

She seems to be crying. What a freak, crying on a bus

I doubt she just got broken up with; she probably just broke a nail or something

The boy with the headphones stands close by, looking down at his phone

What a clumsy guy, he can’t even see where he’s going

But how can I really care, his hair looks like Daniel’s and they have the same shoes

Man fuck those Bluntstones in tan brown 

Mama was right, bad things do happen to good people

One day I will be like Mama and all of my mistakes will be folded up into a secret box that I will place under my bed 

And God willing I will have a husband who caresses me the way Papa did with Mama and doesn’t ask to see the box 

I stare down at my backpack, rocking between my lower legs

My pins, my pride, my life stuck to my backpack 

I chuckle as I read them one by one

Yeah, I wish I could make boys cry

I miss Daniel 

I’ll take that one off, it’s going to go in my secret box under my bed

 

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Charlie

 

Life is beautiful. 

It's a plain statement, caked in simplicity and the mundane

I feel its truth in the song of the morning sparrow, the swishing of the acorn tree

I used to hate taking the bus, being kept inside a tin can hurdling down the road, not being able to see the sparrow or watch the acorn tree

You can’t see how beautiful life is from the bus, the bus isn’t beautiful

What’s beautiful is seeing life existing while you exist in tandem

Two separate storylines, two different souls seeing each other but not interfering 

I love thinking about this

Thinking about my role in the world I see and the luxurious reality I am thrown into

I probably sound crazy, narrating my amusement 

I don’t sound crazy to Joey, though

His soul exists in arm's reach of mine, two paths parallel with each other, the gap between no longer than a few feet away 

Joey understands what I mean when I say life is beautiful 

I have seen his life and I know it's true, much like mine 

Joey and I have known each other for years, existing in liminal spaces between friends and girls and ups and downs

I remember when Joey broke his arm and when his dog died 

I remember how sad he got when he realized his dad wasn’t coming back

See, Joey gets it, and that’s what I love about him

I’ve started calling Joey when I take the bus, just to remind myself that life is beautiful and I’m not alone in thinking so

Joey gets me laughing like no one else can. After all, we live parallel lives

The Sorority girl in the white shorts glares at me

She obviously doesn’t understand that I’m talking to Joey

Because if she did, she would laugh with me, because life is beautiful. 

Issa

 

Did you know that one day everyone you love will die?

I keep hearing Abby’s words ringing in my ear, “Oh shut up”

But Abby doesn’t understand 

No one does, for that matter

Because if everyone knew how everyone they loved was going to die, they wouldn’t just be sitting here

Waiting for it to happen

Letting the minutes and days tick by while the clock ticks down

I hate the way the bus chair feels on my bare legs

Dammit these seats are probably dirty as shit 

Why did I wear white shorts 

Who even wears white shorts, what am I? A Sorority girl? Assuredly not.

Every part of my body feels the awful sensation, and I want to throw up and bang my head against the window of the bus 

Let me outttt

I want to moan, please just let me off the bus, I can’t live like this 

I need to be free of death, I need to outrun Him 

But I can’t, because he lingers as I waste time pacing back and forth trying to determine the best way to save the people I love from his grasp

I wonder how other people do that

I wonder if the girl with the green backpack, giggling at her shoes, knows that everyone she loves will die

Probably fucking not, or she wouldn’t be looking at her backpack like a damn idiot right now

She definitely doesn’t.

There’s a boy laughing at the back of the bus, Jesus, keep it down 

Does he know everyone he loves will die?

Definitely not, he’s too stupid and aloof to understand the gravity of our existence

Jesus, why would you laugh that loudly on the phone, you’re on a bus

He definitely doesn’t understand that, he can’t fathom the idea of other people being in this space

Doesn’t he know we are people too?

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Ben

 

I remember when I realized that not everything was hopeless

I remember sitting on that bench, Dad had just finished planting the petunias 

Mom’s favorite

I miss her

She’s not dead, God no, she’s just busy

Dad says that she’s feeling vulnerable right now and she needs our space

But I don’t think I’m meant to give space to people I love, not like that

Dad says she’ll come around and she’ll want to see us again.

He says that we worry too much about her and that drives her crazy.

I guess I get it, but I wish that she understood that I don’t worry about her because she’s incapable

I worry because of Mackenna’s mom who was killed on our street two years ago the week before Thanksgiving

Because what if Mom was in that car? What if Mom was hit by that man?

What if I never got another Thanksgiving or another I love you or what if I never got to see her again?

I wish she understood that. 

I remember what it was like after that, I became suddenly aware of the mortality of my most prized possessions

It felt awful to realize that everything was one second away from being taken, and I could lose everything 

You could lose us, you’re right

That’s not helping Dad

No, but it's true. But that doesn’t mean that you can despair about it for the rest of our lives. Because one day we will die, and that’s okay. The best way you can contend with that is by appreciating the time we do get. Together. 

But Mom doesn’t want to see us right now.

No, but when she does, just give her a hug and tell her you love her. That’s it.

That’s it?

Yes. 

Dad was right, there was nothing I could do to save her from her ultimate fate, one that I know will tear me apart and leave me bleeding on the ground 

But I can’t live in that space, not now, not when Mom is still breathing and still busy.

She just texted me

“I love you so much, never forget that”

I smiled as I looked down at my phone, losing my balance and bumping into a girl

Sorry sorry

I say softly, but still only thinking about Mom

I can’t wait to see her, I think, as “Orinoco Flow” plays through my headphones and the bus lurches onward

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Artist’s Statement

 

This project got me thinking deeply about the ways that I can forget about the concept of sonder in my everyday life. Recently, as the semester has come to a close and I am more stressed than usual, I have found myself lashing out at people around me for not understanding the stressful positions I am in. I keep reminding myself of the concept of sonder as I go about each day, looking for ways I can appreciate the complexity of others' experiences and lives.

My piece became an exploration into the tunnel vision I feel as though I am experiencing in my everyday life, and the self-centricity of it all. I was hoping to learn a few things about myself and maybe get myself out of this habit at the same time. I have loved using poetry to explore themes in my life and work out some of my feelings attributed to them. I decided on a poetic format for the final project because I felt like it would be a good way to add in creativity while attending to its depth.

In this piece, I wanted to explore different “problems” I feel like are present in my everyday life that I contend with constantly. I wanted to lean into the creativity aspect and the possibility of this project, so I attributed one “problem” to each character I wrote about. Every experience is based on my life (loosely, in some cases), with names changed. They are all connected in one way or another, but exist separately (or together….) from each other. I felt the poems slowly become narrative for each character, but I still tried to stay true to my style of poetry throughout the piece. Each character and their poem is based on things I have journaled about, and their tone reflects my own, though slightly altered for each to align with each of their “problems”. 

I think that my entire piece is a work of attention, and requires attention to read and understand. I made sure to tie together each of their stories and poems in light of my theme of sonder, while also including their obvious tunnel vision throughout all experiences I expound on. I was trying to make this work out really well and come together as kind of one long, poetic narrative, and I think I half did that. I do believe that I reflected my own learnings and experiences about sonder, specifically through the recurring themes in my life through these characters. I also think that I stayed pretty on topic for each five poems, keeping the theme of sonder very present and narrated by the characters in a few hidden ways (ie, they can’t tell how unaware they are of others’ lives). I also think that my project keeps the central theme of attention at its core by forcing the reader to pay attention to little details throughout each experience and thereby alluding to, and explicitly stating, the concept of sonder throughout. 

 

Note: There are areas of the poems that do not adhere to proper grammar. I kept these places unchanged because I believe they reflect some of the original work of journaling and my flowing thought process in these moments. They are intentionally kept in to explore the element of a thought process that does not align with perfection or adherence to grammatical rules. In other words, they are natural, raw, and unpolished, like much of our lives, and the lives of my characters.