Your Face is the Roadmap

The mirror sketches the rivers' descent,  

cheekbones holding valleys that weep time.  

Each line, a trail carved by laughter,    

furrows that echo a mother’s sigh.  

The scar above my brow, crossed timber—  

a childhood tree I fell from once.  

My lips, soft creeks eroded by silence,  

press closed like gates against their ache.  

Across my forehead, continents rise, shift,  

moments tectonic in heat and regret.  

Eyes pull tides, a universe they've weathered,  

their gaze laden with moons of longing.  

The jaw bends under pressure, love's weight,  

its hinge a battlefield of clenched years.  

Every pore whispers of wind and journeys,  

a cartographer drawing breath in flesh.  

This skin of mine holds braided highways,  

life's map etched deep upon its terrain.