today, i am unpacking
my inner landscapes and
other topographies
rearranging the map
where the meridian curved and bowed
around the space of you
this business of boundaries
was glorious, indeed,
as i creased and folded to hide the parts of myself
i did not want to see
if i am a country, if i am an exile, then i am partitioned
and my tongue is split between half-spoken languages
even if my heart still pronounces your name with such elegance that
maps peel back their surfaces to reveal
secret skeletons
like my body, with its own feminine landscape –
the one that i am slowly learning to call
a homeland
Deonna Kelli Sayed 
Love this.
Truly a brilliant metaphor in using maps to describe the internal worlds of self – even down to the bone as suggested by skeletons.
It is a sort of Sufi vector for : “The map is not the territory”, it comments on how even maps themselves are just symbols and models for reference, navigation and understanding without being the model itself.
The idea of opening a map reminds me of the very opening lines of Hamlet where Barnardo asks: “Who’s there?” and Francisco responds: “Nay, answer me: stand and unfold yourself.”
It is also the scene where the ghost first appears. (Act I Scene I)
BTW, I love maps.
Eloquent, magical. Thanks for
sharing.