Hey there, today's episode is hosted by the poet Dianelli Antigua.

Enjoy, and I'll be back on June 22nd.

I'm Dianeli Antigua, and this is The Slowdown.

Thank you. and this is the slowdown. I remember being in middle school,

staring at a blank worksheet,

trying to label all 50 states and their capitals.

My pencil hovering over the page, second-guessing myself, was it Missouri or Montana,

Jefferson City or Boise? I'd say their names under my breath,

hoping it spark my memory.

The map on the worksheet reminded me of playing risk,

a board game where the goal is to take over the world.

You move small plastic armies across territories, marking them

as your own. I never thought of it as anything more than a game. Looking back, I see how it

framed the world as something we could possess with little sense of consequence.

Maps are made by people, and people draw lines.

Yet satellite images show us that Earth has no lines.

There's nothing dividing one country from another,

just mountains, rivers, and oceans, tracing their own paths.

These natural boundaries can be crossed, reshaped, and eroded over time.

And the land doesn't belong to anyone.

We are visitors only passing through.

When we die, the land remains. Yet still, we draw lines.

...