I’d like to climb the clouds
Leave footprints in the sky
so I know I’ve been there
and it’ll have something to remember me by

I want to see all the longitude lines
that are nothing more than constructs of our minds
Have you ever turned the map upside down?
Maybe the US is only hanging on to South America
by a hook called Mexico.

You don’t get what you see
because Mercator
wasn’t quite right with his projections.
Boy, was he ambitious though.
He took something
not even a quarter the size of the Sahara
and dreamed it big enough
to kiss all the corners of Africa.
I want that kind of determination.

I want to stop filling my imagination
and start filling my eyes
with realities of cities and seas,
valleys and villages.
I don’t have to move mountains,
I’ll go to them.

The continents are playing coy
and just because I’ve seen them more than once
doesn’t mean I know them yet
I want to learn their favorite colors.

I want to go far enough away
that I’m not afraid to never come back.
You know wherever I am,
when I close my eyes,
all I see is the horizon.

I’ll draw my own map across my body.
Haleiwa, Hawaii on my chest.
The hottest day in summer, her
shave ice melts into my heart to keep me cool.
Paris is on the inside of my knee,
so I can protect her, keep her on her pedestal,
like you always do with your first love.
Tanzania circles my throat like a Maasai necklace,
it glints in the sun and jingles when I dance.
Dublin’s like a freckle under my chin,
it took me a while to find her,
but now I know there are things worth looking for
And I’ve got plenty of space left on my skin.