I drew the map before I walked the territory through,
marked the points of resistance, the corridors I’d use,
named the gatekeepers by symbol, traced the shortcuts with a line,
and the places where a man could tip the scales into his line.
They don’t teach you this in school, the cartography of want,
how to render what you desire in careful, measurable account,
how to read the space between where you are and where you’re going,
and chart it so precisely that nobody is even knowing.
The map I drew was half prediction, half a burning want,
every route I charted came from something I’d confront.
It’s folded up now, pressed behind my ribs—
every line I traced in pencil, no margins and no fibs.
I put the obstacles in red, my moves in careful blue,
left the unknown regions blank, there’s always something new,
and every time I crossed a checkpoint sketched in advance,
I added to the legend before the next advance.
Some follow other people’s maps and call it guidance,
mistake the borrowed route for their own self-reliance,
but the only map worth trusting in a campaign you’ve chosen
is the one you drew yourself before the ground was frozen.
The territory changed as I moved through it, as it does,
the map revised itself in real time, because that’s what maps must.
But having drawn the first lines gave me language for revision,
and a man with language for the road makes the cleaner decision.