The Cartography of Unmade Stars
by Rudraa Joshi, India. Second place in the Writory International Poetry Contest, December 2025, scored 95 out of 100.
The Cartography of Unmade Stars I left my past where the comets froze, Where futures hid in the shattered prose, Where even time forgot how it chose The planets it sculpted into throes. My silence rose like a sovereign tide, A kingdom built where my fears once lied, It crowned me whole where IтАЩd once complied, A throne reclaimed from the world IтАЩd tried. I learned that hope is a migrant flame, It shifts its home when the nights turn tame, It burns new maps from what once was shame, Rewriting fate without guilt or blame. I shed the hours that dimmed my spark, The ones that taught me to love the dark, I let them drift where the lost remarks Become bright seeds in an unseen arc. My wounds unlearned their ancient creed, They stopped demanding that I concede, They grew into truths the storms could read, Roots blooming wild from the quietтАЩs need. My dreams grew wings where they once had none, They learned to orbit their own new sun, They broke the laws they had lived upon, And rewrote dawn when the night was done. And when I rose from the space IтАЩd bled, The universe bowed to where IтАЩd tread, For I became what the stars once said: A story reborn from the words I shed.
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