What the Cartographer Left Unnamed

At the edge of every old map there is a coast that stops mid-sentence, the surveyor's hand lifted suddenly— a bird, perhaps, or the failing light.

The unnamed places still had weather. Storms moved through them as through any grief, without permission, without the courtesy of a name to call out when the rain arrived.

I've lived in spaces like that. The years before I had words for what I was, the yellow kitchen of a house I'll never re-enter, the hour someone turned and didn't come back.

Cartographers eventually filled those blank margins in. But filling is not the same as knowing— even named, a coast remains the place where the dry land runs out of argument.

Now I keep my own maps, borders drawn in the wrong ink, smudged by use. On them, the silences get their own symbols: a small, unhurried cross, like a grave or a compass rose.