Lyric

Corners of a map curl; coastlines lift

Dust in the folds, a compass drift

Your name—longitude I almost missed

Dog-eared pages, ink turned pale

Portolan scars, a salt-white trail

Districts blank where we once stood

Margins crowded with “we could”

If north is only where you lean

I’ll trust the tilt between the lines

I’ll trade the legend for the scene

And follow every faint design

Guide me home to you

Mark every border we broke through

If pages tear, I’ll redraw the route

Till empty seas print living proof

Bridges unnamed, a vanished quay

Old mile stones without a key

Your laugh—my prime meridian

I set the bearing, breathe it in

When gridlines fade and edges blur

I’ll count by heartbeats, one to two

Dead-reckon through the paper stir

Till all the blankness points to you

Guide me home to you

Mark every border we broke through

If pages tear, I’ll redraw the route

Till empty seas print living proof

If time cross-cuts like isobars

We’ll stitch the weather to our scars

Where charts run out of names to use

We’ll compass new ones, choose by choose

Lost Atlas, write our roads in blue

Scale up the hope we stumbled to

If maps forget, our footsteps won’t—

I’ll draw you true, I’ll draw you true

Close the cover; keep the thread

The way back lives in what we said