716.4 mi. or Sometimes I Get Dizzy Because a Stranger in the Supermarket Smells like Colgate Toothpaste and Black Coffee

We are a taffy pull,
a tango with tired feet,
a never fully unpacked suitcase.

Two years ago, we met in the middle,
two sets of shaky, familiar hands,
and I’ve been running to you ever since.

Through a bus window somewhere in Wisconsin,
I watch billboards for cheese and clean gas station bathrooms blur together, a space inside me hollowing,
scattered pieces leaving a trail down I-90.

Every mile marker a field of dandelions,
I close my eyes and blow.

Crying in an airport isn’t like crying for real.

I remove my shoes, a mosaic of myself
on the metal detector screen,
but no one stops me.

I want to bury myself in your bed and melt into its seams,
so tired of ripping myself out by the roots.

I check the weather where you are,
desperate to connect our dots.
Cincinnati is shining, but storm clouds cover Minneapolis.

How jealous I am of the rain and its nearness to you.
My toothbrush sits on your bathroom counter,
dry.

My hands reach out and find nothing
but discarded calendar pages,
red x’s bleeding all over the sheets.

By Kristian Porter

Biography:

Kristian Porter is a 23-year-old writer who just moved to Minneapolis from Cincinnati and is still adjusting. By day, she works as a copywriter for a marketing agency. By night, she writes poems about distance, alcohol, and all the places that feel like home. When she’s not writing, she’s probably watching cooking shows with her three cats or wandering aimlessly around a bookstore. She has been previously published by Words Dance Publishing and is currently working on her first poetry collection.