Tomorrow Is a Compass Made of Salt

I woke with moths in my mouth
and the taste of burnt clocks.
You were standing at the edge
of a memory I hadn’t lived yet,
holding a spoonful of horizon.

You said:
“Tell me how a shadow survives without the body.”
I said:
“By remembering the warmth.”

You brushed my cheek with the back of your voice.
My heartbeat hiccupped in Morse code:
"dot dot dot — the sun will rise tomorrow."
You didn't ask for proof, and that
was the first miracle.

---

In the basement of my breath,
there are maps drawn in ashes.
You light a match just to read them.
I call that faith.
You call it foolishness wearing a brave coat.

Whenever I encounter difficulties,
I become a question mark
dragged by its tail through yesterday’s mud.
You hold up a mirror,
but it refuses to reflect —
instead, it tells secrets.

“Here’s what I know,” it says,
“Hope is not polite.
It barges in with muddy feet
and eats all your strawberries.”

---

You once whispered to the cold air:
“I am made of unfinished attempts.”
And I agreed.
We are both scaffolds
wrapped around invisible skyscrapers.
Each step a risk,
each breath a rehearsal for flight.

Yet I remind myself —
even broken compasses point north
twice a day if spun by wind and will.
The sun will rise tomorrow,
even if I have to build it
out of broken yolks and aching.

---

You found me drowning
in a teacup storm,
and said, “Drink it.
Swallow the fury.
Digest the despair.”
I sipped.
It tasted like iron and orchids.

You taught me to rewrite pain in invisible ink.
But it kept bleeding through my skin —
a palimpsest of all the things
I didn’t want to survive,
but did.

---

I walked backwards through the forest
of my doubts,
wearing hope like a scarf
knitted by ghosts.
You walked beside me,
holding an umbrella
that caught falling stars instead of rain.

“You still have a chance,” you repeated,
a chant, a spell,
a loop stitched to my soul.

I never believed in repetition
until it started sounding like heartbeat

---

On the 9th floor of fatigue,
where insomnia sells postcards
of dreams you never had,
I found a vending machine.
It only accepted courage.
You handed me a coin
made from your last breakdown
and said:
“Use it wisely. Buy yourself a sunrise.”

I did.
It came in a paper bag
marked fragile: open only in darkness.

---

You are my other voice,
the echo that arrives first.
I pretend I don’t hear you,
but I always answer.

You say:
“Don’t let the night convince you
that the day is a lie.”

I say:
“But the stars keep arguing in Morse code.”

You say:
“Let them. You are not required
to attend every war within yourself.”

---

I once gave up at 3:17 AM.
You picked me up at 3:18
and drove me to the edge of Maybe.
There, you unrolled a sky
painted with possibility
and held my hand
until I believed I had one.

We built a kite from rejection letters
and flew it
until even despair clapped its hands.

---

I carry a pocket full of unfinished promises.
You carry a lighter made of memory.
Together we burn regret
just warm enough to thaw
the frozen yeses.

You tell me the sun is not punctual,
but it always arrives.
Fashionably late
and golden as forgiveness.

---

I want to believe
that I am more than my collapse.
You already do.
That is the burden and the blessing.

Whenever I encounter difficulties,
I remember your silence.
How it listened better than words.
How it wrapped my jagged breath
in soft inevitability.

---

Hope is not linear.
It’s a bird with vertigo.
It flies in spirals,
stitches the sky in loops.
You taught me that.
I learned.

The sun will rise tomorrow.
This is not just a sentence.
It’s a blueprint,
a rebellion,
a lullaby for the sleepless.

---

You are me,
and I am you,
and we are standing at the seam
where night frays into dawn.

Our shadows argue,
our fears demand receipts.
But we smile —
gently, brokenly —
because somewhere inside
the doubt and debris,
there's a soft light
that refuses to leave.

It says:

“You still have a chance.”
And we do.

---