Heading west on I-80, you learn the art of loneliness. Begin to think of travel as spaces opening to more spaces, each one more vast than the last. Past the Missouri River, the cities get smaller and smaller until they’re just blips along the journey. Something you might mistake for a myth if you didn’t know better. If you hadn’t lived in one of those locations for years with barely a breath or a sigh. A slight cough. Often enough, drivers came through looking for gas or directions. All that space to wander, but you stayed there listening to semis roll past. As, little by little, the world crumbled around you. The spaces inside you are far more open than the fields spreading themselves against the skyline. That yawn and gape into the prairie horizon.
Adrian S. Potter writes poetry and prose in Minnesota. He is the author of the poetry collection Everything Wrong Feels Right and the prose chapbook The Alter Ego Handbook. Some publication credits include North American Review, Obsidian, Jet Fuel Review, and Kansas City Voices. Visit him online at www.adrianspotter.com.
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