Maps

• Ashley Dunne, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2013

Maps tell you who you are. Or who to be.
Where to go. And how to get there.

In 100 m take the 2nd left onto…

It provides you a carefully constructed course.
Accounting for traffic, wind speed, visibility and failures.
Predicting the unpredictable.

200 to Starboard. 200 to Starboard, Cap…

But they can never anticipate those life-altering, undeniable, tormenting moments
That make you question why you’re even taking the journey

Cessna Golf Niner Niner, requesting taxi for…

Then, when the rains flood, that precise dotted line
begins to bleed, staining the ocean ink red
And you are left floating alone

I am the Lord thy God and thou shall have no god but…

Lost at sea, sinking slowly in a boat hastily slapped together
From meticulously accurate, thin, paper maps.