I am a cartographer of this lost world, charting paths no one dares to trace. My compass is broken, twisted by hands that once held too much power, but still, I walk. I walk with the small hands of bruised children clinging to mine, their eyes wide with too much history for such tiny souls. We are the ones forgotten by the maps, left off the edges of society’s glowing lights. They don’t see us here in the shadows, but we see everything.
I know their fears, the way silence can wrap itself around your throat like a too-tight scarf. I know the way night falls heavy, like a drunk man collapsing on your chest, and you can’t breathe, can’t scream. We are navigating this broken terrain together, my children and I, with no stars to guide us—just our raw, beaten hearts pulsing like dim beacons. I want to tell them that this world can be kind, that there is sweetness waiting on the other side of this barren desert, but how do you speak of sweetness when your tongue has only ever known ash?
We walk anyway. I teach them the of resilience, of dragging your feet through the muck and still finding some small flower growing between the cracks. “Look,” I say, “this is how we survive.” They look at me with their questioning eyes, their hollow cheeks. They ask me what comes next, but I don’t have answers. I just keep holding their hands, hoping that somehow, I am enough, that my scarred skin is strong enough to protect their fragile dreams.
There are days we stumble. Days when the world tips sideways, and we fall into the chasm of memory, replaying the screams, the fists, the endless nights of waiting for something—anything—to change. But we rise again. We always rise, because we must. Because the odds were never in our favor, but here we are, defying them with every step we take.
We are not heroes. We are simply survivors, threading our way through the labyrinth of the past, searching for a way out. And maybe, just maybe, if we keep walking, keep breathing, keep loving through the pain, we will find the path that leads us home.
B 🤍
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