The Map & the Territory

It’s not the unknown that undoes you. It’s the known that walks you into walls.

There was once a woman who organized the world into what she was sure of.

This was not arrogance. It was architecture, an archway of keeping the ceiling up. She stacked certainties the way you stack good dishes: carefully, in the order you may need them. She knew the weight of particular griefs, which rooms, how someone’s voice changes when they’ve made a decision but haven’t told you yet.