Corn

Two-hundred-and-fifty-three miles to Des Moines.

It’s five AM and it’s dark and cold. I’m sipping burnt instant coffee out of the mug they gave away freshman year and eating porridge with tropical fruit trail mix out of the aluminum bowl I got a thrift store in New Zealand. I’m listening to a story on public radio about refuge children who went missing in Europe.

Please stop telling me how many miles to Des Moines. You just told me ten miles ago and that city means nothing to me. It is just a reminder that I’m still in Trump country and I still have a long, long way to go. It’s too early to be thinking about Des Moines.

An Irish immigration expert is talking about something but all I hear is her accent. She is from Dublin so she doesn’t talk like you. And then she says one word and I start to time travel.

“Stuck.”

I can imagine you saying that word exactly how the woman on the radio says it.

Maybe it was when we were cooking mushrooms, brown rice and lentils by the river and our family of mischievous ducks wouldn’t stop trying to steal our food.

Or maybe it was when walked through the forest with big bottles of beer and made up stories about the lives of trees and you told me all the things you never told anyone else.

No, it was when the status of our relationship was determined by the texture of peanut butter and the variety of jam in my sandwich.

It’s before dawn and I barely got any sleep and I’m idealizing women from my past again.

Ninety-eight miles to Des Moines and all I can see is corn.