They say the city appears only
when you’re not looking for it,
a shimmer at the edge of vision,
like heat rising from a road
that leads nowhere you meant to go.
Every building is transparent,
yet nothing inside is visible.
Light passes through as if the city
were remembering how to be solid
and hasn’t quite decided.
The streets echo softly,
not with footsteps,
but with the sound of choices
you almost made.
Windows tilt at impossible angles,
reflecting versions of you
that never stepped into this life –
the ones who turned left instead of right,
the ones who stayed,
the ones who left sooner.
No map marks its borders.
No traveler claims to have reached its center.
Some say there isn’t one,
that the city folds inward endlessly,
a hall of mirrors built by a dream
that refused to wake.
And if you listen closely,
you can hear a faint hum,
as though the glass itself
is trying to remember
the shape of the world
before it became transparent.
Those who find the city
never stay long.
Not because it’s dangerous,
but because it shows you
too clearly
the life you didn’t choose.
When you leave,
the air behind you
carries a thin, crystalline scent –
like the memory
of a place
that never asked you to find it.
Feb 7
Feb 7, 2026 at 3:26 PM UTC
They say the city appears only
when you’re not looking for it,
a shimmer at the edge of vision,
like heat rising from a road
that leads nowhere you meant to go.
Every building is transparent,
yet nothing inside is visible.
Light passes through as if the city
were remembering how to be solid
and hasn’t quite decided.
The streets echo softly,
not with footsteps,
but with the sound of choices
you almost made.
Windows tilt at impossible angles,
reflecting versions of you
that never stepped into this life –
the ones who turned left instead of right,
the ones who stayed,
the ones who left sooner.
No map marks its borders.
No traveler claims to have reached its center.
Some say there isn’t one,
that the city folds inward endlessly,
a hall of mirrors built by a dream
that refused to wake.
And if you listen closely,
you can hear a faint hum,
as though the glass itself
is trying to remember
the shape of the world
before it became transparent.
Those who find the city
never stay long.
Not because it’s dangerous,
but because it shows you
too clearly
the life you didn’t choose.
When you leave,
the air behind you
carries a thin, crystalline scent –
like the memory
of a place
that never asked you to find it.
A companion to "The Scent of an Unvisited Place", this poem explores the elusive city hinted at in the map, a place built from reflections, almost-choices, and the lives we didn't live. It forms the second part of a triptych completed by "The Cartographers Debt."
