Cartography of Invisible Wounds

There are maps no one teaches you to read.

They are not printed on paper, not charted in atlases, not sold in libraries or museums.

They live under the skin, etched in silence, inked in salt and memory.

Maps written by what broke us, and by what somehow held.

I carry such an atlas.

I. The Sea of Fractures

The first page begins at the sternum.

Here lies an inland sea—vast, restless, born of one single fracture of trust.

Its waters lap against bone like waves against cliff.

There is no compass in these waters, no certain North.

Only tides that return endlessly to their beginning,

dragging me back to moments I thought I had already outlived.

Some nights, the sea is quiet, silver as glass.

Other nights, storms rise from nowhere,

flooding every shore with grief that feels brand new,

though it is older than my bones.

II. The Ribs: A Mountain Range

Across the ribs stretches a mountain range,

peaks sharp as broken glass.

They were carved by words that never came,

by endings that hung without closure,

by the silence of those who turned away.

Their slopes are steep with vigilance.

I learned to climb them before I learned to rest.

From their summits, I can see storms long before they break,

but the cost is heavy —

the body bracing always,

even when skies are clear.

III. The Desert of Absences

To the south, the land flattens into silence.

A desert of absence.

Here live the names no one speaks anymore,

the faces erased from photographs,

the voices swallowed by time or shame.

Day burns.

Night freezes.

The horizon is always just out of reach.

The desert teaches endurance —

but never comfort.

It strips everything down to survival,

and though flowers bloom in secret after rain,

their beauty is fragile,

gone before morning.

IV. The River of Compromises

Running down the arms, silver and winding,

is a river carved by daily survival.

Each bend remembers a swallowed protest,

each rapid remembers a night endured in silence,

each tributary carries the taste of salt.

The river does not roar.

It does not rage.

It simply keeps moving,

carrying the weight of endurance disguised as calm.

Those who drink from it taste resilience.

But I know the bitterness beneath.

V. The Forest of Strange Healing

On the back lies a forest, hidden from plain sight.

Overgrown, tangled, alive with whispers.

This is where wounds did not close cleanly.

They sprouted instead into something else —

half scar, half sanctuary.

Trees rise from old fractures,

their bark twisted, their roots deep.

Birds nest in the branches,

their songs thin but insistent.

Sometimes, if I stand still,

I almost forget the forest grew from ruin.

It smells of pine and ash,

a place where hurt became habitat.

VI. The Glacier of Numbness

Further north, where thought meets breath,

a glacier spreads.

It is cold, vast, silent.

Its surface gleams with stillness,

but underneath runs frozen grief,

trapped, suspended, waiting.

This is the land of shutting down.

The land where feeling became unbearable,

so it was buried in ice.

It is beautiful, in a way.

But dangerous too.

For when the glacier cracks,

avalanches fall without warning.

VII. The Archipelago of Scars

Across the skin, scattered like constellations,

lies an archipelago of small islands.

Each one marks a wound that closed.

Each one carries its own story:

a cut, a bruise, a burn,

the body’s way of remembering

what the mind tried to forget.

From above, the islands form a pattern —

a constellation in flesh.

Not ruin, but proof.

Not weakness, but survival.

VIII. The Volcano at the Heart

And always, at the heart,

there is a volcano.

It smolders quietly,

ash drifting in unseen currents,

magma trembling beneath.

Most days, it sleeps.

But I know its power.

It remembers anger,

it remembers loss,

it remembers everything I swallowed to keep the peace.

One day, it may erupt.

And perhaps that will not be destruction,

but renewal.

The land remade, fertile again,

by fire that once only devoured.

IX. The Fault Line

Beneath all of it runs a fault line.

It is not visible.

But I feel it.

Every step, every breath,

trembles with the memory of fractures past

and the threat of fractures to come.

Sometimes it is quiet,

a sleeping beast.

Other times it shakes without warning,

reminding me the ground I stand on

has never been solid.

Epilogue: Reading the Map

This is the geography no atlas sells.

The cartography no school teaches.

The map every body carries, though most never show.

If you trace it carefully,

if you read without flinching,

you’ll learn that wounds are not just endings.

They are borders and bridges,

deserts and rivers,

mountains and forests,

oceans and fire.

They are not only scars,

but stories.

And perhaps —

if you are patient —

you’ll see that the map written in wounds

is not only a record of pain,

but also of passage.

A living land, scarred but breathing.

Not ruins.

Not broken.

A world still here.

Still whole.

Still alive.