I’m not good with directions

and a map in my hands is like

a book in a blind man’s.

I want to say I’m friends with north,

that wherever I go, it will lead

the way-

and I will know where it is,

trusted companion,

crucial friend.

But deliverance from loss

only comes through a blazing sun

or a string of stars lit

like popcorn on fire throughout the sky.

Without a celestial crutch, my own

compass spins and spins,

no magnetic field,

no way to ground it, spinning around.

I spin around and look for north,

or east, or west, or home.

See, I even forget which direction

my house faces and I

feel like a failure

at a simple task

which for me seems an impossible challenge.

But my face is round, like a compass rose,

it can be read like that twitching,

taunting, teasing needle

underneath the smooth, cold glass.

I am a compass of my own,

orienting the right

from the wrong in myself,

separating the natural

from the not.

And my intuition tells me

directions don’t come intuitively

to me.

Yes, my compass rose

and told me not to bother

worrying about my feet

on the ground or a

geographical image

of where I am because I know

where I am.

I know where I am and I need

to visualize not what I can’t see,

but what I can see

with clarity.

Yes, I will pore over the road map

of twisting paths and abstract

absolutes of direction

to glean the essentials

and, essentially, get lost.

But when I do face confusion

and boredom and frustrated

helplessness, I will have to ignore

the fact that others can point north

more quickly than me,

or travel great distances without a map to read

or know east, south, west intuitively,

or know where they are without a sunrise’s

slow bleed.

They follow their own roads and they know

where to go because those roads are natural

to them.

If they are not natural to me, I must not

envy the paths of others, but choose my own

which I will navigate easily

with the little gold compass nestled inside me.

Here, I’ll set forth in my mind

a dedication to be free,

to set out for north and find it;

to listen to my compass rose

and abide it;

to follow its needling and prodding

and hear when it says:

Here is north, follow it,

and it will take you

all the way home.