To see farther than the people standing
in your immediate vicinity
is a kind of loneliness
that comes with a specific dignity.
You build for outcomes nobody around you can yet picture,
explain yourself to no one,
just proceed through every stricture.
The cost of vision is the isolation of the seeing—
being years ahead of where the conversation is agreeing,
explaining what you plan to people who will understand it after,
the cost is not paid in doubt,
it is paid in the laughter
of every person who told you
it was not a real possibility.
I drew the map of where I would be standing in five years,
showed it to three people,
received two doubtful nods and a set of sneers.
I folded up the map and put it in the drawer
and built it anyway,
stood in that exact location
when the sun came up that day.
The cost is carried in the chest
with a patient immobility.
It is simply the tuition
for a longer operating feature—
you pay it in advance,
the return is asymmetric,
the ones who mocked the map
do not get access to the lyric.