Most days I am a living map,
not finished, not fixed—
a coastline learning the shape
of its own return.
There are mornings
the compass steadies in my hand,
and I believe I know the road.
On other days
the fog swallows the shoreline,
every direction lost to open water,
and I fumble with a language
I've forgotten.
I have spent years
trying to redraw myself
into something easier to follow—
fewer storms,
fewer borders,
fewer places marked
do not enter.
But the old names remain.
Abandonment.
Brokenness.
Survival.
They do not cancel one another.
They stand like towns
I pass through daily.
I carry questions
like coins passed from hand to hand—
traded for stories, explanations, beliefs.
Their faces have worn smooth.
I can no longer tell
which questions were mine.
Some days my voice belongs to me.
Some days it borrows its weather
from the room.
I often wonder
if I have a voice of my own.
I am no longer looking
for a final destination.
I am looking for a way
to live inside the weather.
To keep walking
with the ache and the kindness,
the fear and that small, brave light still striking its match.
What makes me mineis not the absence of dark,
not a compass that never spins,
but the whole unruly map—
every wrong turn,
every shoreline,
every spark
in a language
I am still learning to read.
-
Author:
Chuck Peterson (Pseudonym) (
Online) - Published: July 12th, 2026 02:55
- Comment from author about the poem: Some days I know exactly who I am. Other days, I'm a fogbank. This poem began as a question I've been asking for years: What if I stopped trying to fix myself and learned to read the map I already am? It's about the old names that don't cancel each other out—and the small, brave light that keeps striking its match anyway.
- Category: Reflection
- Views: 1
Online)
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