A Method for Monday Mornings by Amber Lucik

Eyes shut in the instant before impact and you have just enough time to wonder what it was that you were seeking before your alarm convinces you it never really mattered. Awake, arise, alight into the kitchen to find a map on the table filled with all of the words you have ever spoken. Beneath it, filled to the very limit of legibility, another map of all of the words you have never spoken. Even as you stand there, more words amass. What makes you unique is not the strange patterns of letters, your own personal measurements in an impossible wardrobe; what makes you unique is your disinterest in the cartographer or in my/your/his/her/its/our/their methods. In the maps themselves or their manner of morphing. Unlike the rest of us. Frivolous fools (you’d think if you thought of such things), who grasp our maps tightly at all times, bring them to bed with us, bathe them in our showers, cherish them on our blogs, driven half-mad and more desperate with the need to compare them with each new person we meet, seeking always the places of overlap and exception, filled with such a yeoman’s yearning for connection or, more accurately, validation that we accomplish precious little else in our lives. “Pedestrian,” you’d say, not even bothering to look at the new marker emerging, such a tedious balancing of accounts. But as you brew your coffee, you do finally wonder about the fate of all of the words you think but do not say. After your first sip, you take out a sheet of paper and begin to jot them down.