30 July 2026

Metaphor is a Map

Every map is a confession
that the world is too large
to carry whole.
So we reduced mountains
to triangles, oceans to blue ink,
people to symbols.

Perhaps every metaphor
isn't an invention, but an 
apology for language 
being too small to hold a
living thing.

So you should know when
I reduce your name to a
a certain shade of red. 
Your face to a yellow 
breasted sparrow that visits 
my village every winter-

Maybe I've failed to 
become large enough to 
contain you, and everytime 
you're my favourite 
jasmine or guava my 
grandma loved,
You should know it is a
silent apology for my 
inability to comprehend 
you enough.

So lemme unapologetically 
make you a coastline, 
turn you into a tide and mark 
every place I kissed you as a 
lighthouse.
Every argument, a cliff.
Every return, a harbour.

Let every poem I write 
be a humble submission 
before the sky you've 
grown into.
And every metaphor 
I've ever written be a star 
I've counted, not knowing 
how many more I've to 
come up with, to sigh into 
a disbelief of how 
infinite you are.