i arrived in this world with no map to guide me but the palms of your hands. you let me hold them sometimes, and they’re warm and inviting.

sometimes you make me feel starry-eyed with your words, or at least that’s what you used to do

but i’m waiting for you to send me constellations of goosebumps running down my arms and spine

i will shape myself into an amateur cartographer, and make it an active point to mark places on the map that we’ve been to together, and as i trace my fingers across towns and mountains we’ve yet to cross, a part of me wonders if we’ll even get to any of those destinations

because somehow you’re staggering and i don’t know why or what’s holding you back

still i persist, i yearn for adventure.

i leave the map unfurled and smooth the creases of my sudden remembrance that i came here alone. i made my own decisions and ran into you in the meanwhile.

you too, were a wandering traveler. your feelings as nomadic as your feet on these lands. i wouldn’t call myself foolish to have ever gotten involved, but you are embedded in my memories. a new story for me to flesh out every time someone asks me how i got here or there. i’ll keep meandering from town to town, but no longer will i seek you — you may find me.

i realized this was not your map, but mine.