Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest

I Forgot All My Maps When I Moved to Massachusetts
by Makayla Rutledge

Twenty-Fourth Contest
SECOND Place

you can lose yourself
in many things.
i have melted into the blue eyes
of a boy who never cared for me.
i have lost myself in the spaces between
the strings of guitars,
and nothing could ever lead me from
the feeling of his arms
and the smell of his sweatshirts.
i have lost myself in the timbre
of laughter
from the mouth of a child,
and i have wandered in fields of flowers.
i have lost myself in the way his smile
curves slightly to the left,
and gone missing in the moonlit curve
of his shoulder as he breathes
late at night.
i have lost myself
in the spray of hot showers,
and the ability to make words
march across a page.
i have set all boats adrift
at the smell of a campfire and the
comfort of family.
i have lost myself
amongst the feel of his
lips on my skin,
and i have fallen through the cracks
between his fingers and the sound
of the words i love you.
i have lost myself
in the look of the blue rivers
that flow beneath my skin
and stain the tile red,
and i have vanished
inside
the feeling of a million other bodies
pressed against mine.
i have lost myself
in the tinny sounds of a radio
when the snow drifts down
outside,
and i have strayed from every path
for the songs of my childhood
and the promise of a future.
there are virtually millions of things
with pieces of me
poured and stuck and crashed and imprinted inside
and i hope you see
why i'd never
want 
to be found.

About the Author
I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. The two things I love most in the world are poetry and musical theater, because they make everything simpler and bring out the most important, incredible parts of people. I write and read like crazy, but in my spare time, you could probably find me eating cheese quesadillas and watching The Office.