Map Literary: A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art
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  • Archives
    • 2018 >
      • Poetry 2018 >
        • Carlos Hiraldo
        • Martin Ott
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      • Fiction 2018 >
        • Rebecca Pyle, "Winter Solstice"
        • Martin Rutley, "Job Offer on Seventh Heaven"
        • Matthew Baker, "Superhighway"
        • Matthew Serback, "How to Make a Boulder"
        • Pavle Radonic, "The Laboratory"
        • Arkor Kolubah, "A Touch of Comfort"
      • Nonfiction 2018 >
        • Scott Wordsman reviews Petter Lindgren
        • Alexander Clark, "Postdiluvian"
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      • Fiction 2017 >
        • Kathryn Holzman, "Eating Meat"
        • Kaitlyn Burd, "Nature with You in It"
        • Katie Young Foster, "Promotion"
        • William Cordeiro, "Selections from Whispering Gallery"
        • Alexandra Renwick, "The Life of an Artifact in Duodecadal Glances"
        • Lizzi Wolf, "My Brother's Therapist"
      • Poetry 2017 >
        • Keith Mark Gaboury
        • Mark Decarteret
        • Douglas Piccinnini
        • Matthew McBride
        • Jim Daniels
        • Sally Ashton
        • Raymond Farr
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        • Charlie Moses, "Dear Friend"
        • Pamela Woolford, "This Is What Happened"
        • Jennifer Martelli, "Phobiacompendia"
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      • Fiction 2016 >
        • Loie Merritt, "The Edge of the Sea is a Strange and Beautiful Place"
        • Mitchell Grabois, "i"
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        • Mike Shepley, "Killing Symbols"
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        • Kate Imbach, "Diamondland"
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        • Jeff Alessandrelli
        • Daniel Coudriet
        • Peter Leight
        • John Wells
        • Jenna Cardinale
        • Isabelle Shepherd
        • Michael Robins
        • Will Walker
        • Bridget Sprouls
        • Allan Johnston
        • Hugh Behm-Steinberg
        • Caroline Knox
        • David Dodd Lee
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    • 2015 >
      • Poetry 2015 >
        • Adam Clay
        • Kyle Hemmings
        • Matthew Henriksen
        • Megan Kaminski
        • Emily Kendal Frey
        • Noelle Kocot
        • Katy Lederer
        • John Lowther
        • Nathaniel Sverloff
        • Franz Werfel -- James Reidel
      • Fiction 2015 >
        • Erin Bedford, "Riesenrad"
        • James Braziel, "Jick's Chevrolet"
        • James Braziel, "Vittate"
        • Adrian Class, "Or Flights"
        • Erica L. Kaufman, "It Buried Us"
        • Nolan Liebert, "Gravity of Hearts"
        • Heather Noland, "Cosmic Slump"
        • Tom Whalen, "In the Cathedral"
      • Nonfiction 2015 >
        • Rebecca Cook, "What the Hammer Said When the Hammer Hit the Girl"
        • Margot Kelley, "Companion Species"
    • Fall 2014 >
      • Poetry Fall 2014 >
        • Stephanie Anderson
        • John Buckley and Martin Ott
        • Vanessa Couto Johnson
        • John Estes
        • Anne Gorrick
        • Henry Israeli
        • Keegan Lester
        • John Loughlin
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        • Alexandria Peary
        • Marcus Slease
        • Georg Trakl / James Reidel
      • Fiction Fall 2014 >
        • Matt Rowan, "Dog's Best Friend"
        • Kelli Anne Noftle, "Before She Was Olive"
        • Chris Okum, "Ratatat"
        • Jon Fried, "Cashing In"
        • Lisa C. Taylor, "Visible Wounds"
        • Sarah Kahn, "Break"
        • Rebekah Morton, "Big Sis"
      • Nonfiction Fall 2014 >
        • Stephen Benz, "Night Then Morning: Elko, Nevada"
        • Joseph C. Jiuliani, "Of Stealing and of Being Stolen"
        • Lindsay Chudzik, "Jailface"
        • Robert D. Vivian, "Just After Rain"
    • Spring 2014 >
      • Poetry Spring 2014 >
        • Simeon Berry
        • Molly Brodak
        • Wyn Cooper
        • Brian Foley
        • Tim Kahl
        • Caroline Knox
        • Rob MacDonald
        • Benjamin Paloff
      • Fiction Spring 2014 >
        • Gareth David Anderson, "Cupcake"
        • Halsted M. Bernard, "Your Hands"
        • Patrick Cole, "Pick-up Lines"
        • Joshua Graber, "This Fine Experience"
        • Lola Grace, "Natural Birth"
        • Robert E. Tanner, "Non-Disclosure Disagreement"
      • Art Spring 2014
    • 2012 & 2013
  • Pedagogy
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MATTHEW SERBACK

How to Make a Boulder


​​At some point in your life, someone is going to tell you that boulders are just abnormally large rocks.

That’s true.

Technically.

I assume you know there’s more to being right than just telling the truth. Life isn’t about the technicalities.

Boulders are large rocks, but that only tells part of the story; it only tells the boring part of the story.

Like you, boulders are made up of smaller pieces of material. You’re made up of smaller pieces of material – I think. I’ve been told by someone else that there’s smaller – these infinitesimal – pieces of organic material that are the building blocks of our bodies. I don’t think either of us is smart enough to know if someone else is telling the truth, but it’s best to trust that someone wouldn’t purposefully lie to you.

My boulder started with my body.

It’s not masculine to feel bad about your body; someone told me that. I’m sure people would think it’s gay for a man – a straight man – to feel squeamish and have self-doubt about how they look. And since I felt that way about my body, I’m sure they thought those things about me.

Do you remember when you were just smaller pieces of yourself?

There was that time when I was ten and I went with my family to one of those chain barbecue restaurants named The Boneyard or The Backyard or The Back Grill Bone Palace – or something – and my father got drunk, poisoning the well – and tried to fight our waiter for no reason.

I remember that.

I remember that sudden onset and rush of shame that my family somehow felt low class. We were the kind of people that someone else said wasn’t worth much.

That shame – that first taste of it – was my first pebble.

Shame is peculiar.

Someone told me that shame wasn’t a masculine or feminine trait. Shame was genderless. The way I was told, shame was seen as an inhuman trait. Those deep cesspools of regret were some kind of foreign disease that muddied up our blood.

There were always more pebbles: Like the first time I thought about killing myself, or the fight time I tried to kill myself, or the second time I tried to kill myself, or the time I flunked calculus because I didn’t try hard enough.

Or how every time I have a problem, I run away from it.

Those are all pebbles.

After years of shaming and doubting, those pebbles became a boulder that I fixed to my back – metaphorically. All those small things that made me whole were now being lugged around as proof of the things that held me down.

Someone might cite Sisyphus as the patriarch of the boulder. In Greek mythology, he was punished by the gods and forced to roll a boulder uphill. Every time he made it to the top, the boulder would rush back down the hill.
 
That same person who told you about Sisyphus will tell you that story is about the futility of trying to stop the inevitable from happening. They’ll think you’re like Sisyphus because all you do is think about killing yourself, or try to kill yourself, or try to kill yourself again, or fail because you didn’t try – and you’ll run away.

It’s futile.

They may be right.

You see, people are right about boulders. They’re made up of smaller things. They’re right when they say they are just freakishly large pieces of something else. They are just the overabundance of things we saw as insignificant.

But I’m also right when I tell you that boulders are just like us.

​At least, that’s what someone told me – once.

​

Copyright © April 2018 Matthew Serback and Map Literary

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Mathew Serback's poetry, fiction, and nonfiction can be found in The Collapsar, Juked, Dime Show Review, and many other terrific publications.
published by
The Department of English
College of Humanities & Social Sciences
The William Paterson University of New Jersey
Copyright  © 2012-2021 Map Literary
Map Literary

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