I watched you lose yourself that summer,
heard you curse as you stumbled through brambles
and blindly crashed into trees.
I saw you fading from the map you had drawn for yourself,
forgetting which direction was North and which was Nothing.
I felt you move further away from the center of your earth;
I fashioned a compass with my hands,
the needle pointing back where you'd come from.
I slipped it into your pocket as you blindly passed me by,
then wandered off my own path, mapless,
no needle to point me back to myself.