The Atlas of Small Losses

The map on the wall fades where your fingers traced the route, longitude bleeding into margin notes, tiny monuments to journeys that became stories that became dust.

I catalog the damage: the corner worn to cloud, the fold that won't unfold, the stains—tea? time? the accident of living with something beautiful.

But damage is just touch made permanent, the map's soft collapse proof that you held it close, that you believed in the places marked, that wanting to leave is its own kind of staying.