Member-only story
Driven Off the Map
A Poem
Did you know your smile lights up a room?
Honey, you’re starlight shaped like a person,
And I think everyone else knows it by now.
But even shooting stars plummet to earth
And we collect the rocks of outer spheres
Because we’re so dissatisfied down here.
But you don’t see, do you, all the destinations
That cross from your here to the soon-to-be there?
You had cities in your mind’s eye —
The lights of Paris, the scents of Milan,
The dusty roads of some Shangri-la —
Yet here we are now, left with your torn map.
Where did you go? Why did you leave?
The questions are many, the answers decrepit,
And every single verse seems too wrong.
The panic settles into a hum, the noise
Into a buzz like insects swarming,
And there’s nothing to say but
“I miss you” and “I wish you were here” —
Even though those things seem too late
When you were looking our way all along,
