You wrote poems
Of lovers
Tracing maps on your skin
Highways
To a new high
Secrets kisses lined
Rivers of ecstasy
Newly discovered
An illusion:
Colonial,
Therefore dry and heartless
Your skin screamed
And sometime after
Even with rivers and roads
Traced by
Unfamiliar hands
Your heart lay still
Even Silent

You felt it again
Palpitations
Twisted
Enormous
Passion

New love
Was only recycled emotion
So you recycled your body
To be used by many
Boring
Heartless
Colonial Men
Then set off to find new places
A new surface
To hide beneath

You said it was only
Your love of exploration
Of the new
That drove you to commit
These mindless acts
As you secretly
Tried to forget
The places you’d been

And you thought maybe
If you
Filled the map enough
You’d cover up your past
Maybe if you
Gave your soul away
In tiny pieces
Distributed evenly
One day
There would be
Nothing left
No countries
No surrenders
No divisions of land
Just still
Water


Still
The scars of endless maps
Are deep
On your skin


2011