He cranes tiredly over folds of parchment
As sunlight falls across his ashen features
And the restless night becomes lost
Within a sea of fading maps and broken compasses.

Worn pencils collect on hardwood like dust,
And discarded errors in calculation fall into the corners.
He stumbles weakly between varying levels of consciousness,
And exhaustion claims an inch more of his body
With each exasperated flutter of his eyelids.

He spins the globe to his right with a lazy hand
And catches Africa with his finger
Wishing that he could’ve been anywhere but here
Because it is immeasurably heartbreaking
To have the entire world at your fingertips
And to have never seen any of it.

j.s.