Map

You pointed at my shoulder

like you'd discovered something,

your finger pressing gentle against the skin

I haven't looked at since

my mother mentioned it

when I was small.

"What is that?" you asked.

Not unkindly, just curious,

the way you'd ask about a stain

or a wrinkle, something that marks

a surface.

I went to the mirror.

I had to crane my neck,

had to angle my arm just right,

had to pretend I could see what you saw—

this mark that belongs to me,

that I've carried my whole life

without ever really seeing it.

It's small. Brown. Unremarkable.

The kind of thing people are born with

and forget about

because it doesn't hurt,

because it doesn't change,

because your own eyes can't quite reach it.

But you saw it.

Your hand found it

before I could.

Now when I look in the mirror,

I look for it first.

I turn my shoulder toward the glass

the way you must see it,

the way you know me.

My mother was right.

It's been there all along.

But it took someone else's eyes

to make it real,

to make me understand

that there are parts of myself

I'll never fully see,

that other people will always know me

better than I know myself,

at least in this one specific way—

the way your finger found

what I didn't know I was looking for.