Mapmaker

I've dreamt too often of wandering in cities I've never seen and of sleeping under rooftops  that have housed way too many souls since they were built by calloused hands. 

I long to get lost in streets damp with dew, and to rejoice with a warm cup of coffee warming my hands in a bustling cafe I found in the middle of a hectic city. Maybe I'm visiting for the first time, or maybe for the umpteenth time, but being so in love with such a place of this world makes it feel like every time I visit is the first time ever. 

I want to get blisters in my tired feet that can't stop rushing from monuments to the nearest museum. I want to be amazed at ancient buildings and envy the always greener park grass  of cities that didn't see me grow, but that are now essential to my personal growing. I want to walk the streets and sit in the benches where my favorite writers came up with the plots for their biggest novel, and I want to sleep with the mountains Shelley so hauntingly talks about in her stories right in front of me. I want to fall in fleeting love with passing strangers, and run my fingers over book spines that are written in languages I don't even understand. 

I want to feel the snow that falls silently melting on my tongue, to run because I'm missing the train. I'm dying to fall asleep on someone's shoulder inside a rattling wagon while the rain pours down the glass and blurs the scenery which details I'll never remember. I want to fill notebooks with more photographs than anyone should take and with shaky words that reflect my eagerness to consume this life I've been given. 

I want to draw a map of the world I've made up with my own two hands and walked with my own two feet. I want to see all of it for myself, to feel all of it with my body, to love all of it with my heart.