Corners Bent Like Old Maps

I found it folded, soft

like an old secret tucked away,

a passport worn at the edges

from fingers that no longer reach

for far-off places.

Its stamps bleed into one another,

faded stamps of places that called

and places I left behind

like footprints erased by rain.

The paper whispers stories

I half remember, half forget—

the quiet rustle of travel,

escape, and return,

all folded tight in a cracked spine.

I hold it slow,

weight of roads not taken,

of borders crossed,

of a world that once felt

like it might let me go.

Now it’s just a book of ghosts,

pages soft with distance.