Once,
they handed her a map—
blank,
except for the words:
“You are here.”

But here kept shifting.
One day, it was sorrow
shaped like a fox
with silver fur and eyes like unspoken apologies.
The next, it was joy—
a balloon beast that floated just out of reach,
tied to a string knotted around her ribcage.

She wandered.

Through the Forest of Almosts,
past the Swamp of Not-Yets,
into the valley where shame
whispered her name backward
so she wouldn’t recognize herself.

She wore her fears like jewelry.
Polished it.
Let it glint in the dark.

She met Anger
It didn’t scream.
It built towers from her old voices
and dared her to climb
without a rope.

She met Silence, too—
it moved like fog
and tasted like metal.
It offered her tea
and made her weep into her own hands
without asking why.

And still, she walked.

One night,
the moon opened a door in the ground.
She fell into a forest
with no sky,
where trees grew upside-down
and every path looked like a wound.

At the center,
she found a mirror
half-buried in the belly of a tree.

It didn’t show her face.
It showed her story—
stitched from shadows and second chances,
frayed,
but still holding.

And for the first time,
she didn’t want to erase anything.

She folded the blank map
into a boat.
Set it in the river.
And walked home—
not knowing the way,
but knowing she was the compass.