Living Map Poem, by Chuck Peterson, at My poetic side

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.

Broken.

Survival.

They do not cancel one another.

They stand like towns

I pass through daily.

I am no longer looking

for the place where I am "cured."

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 mine is 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 speak.

Author: Chuck Peterson (Pseudonym) ( Offline)
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: 3

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