Our Geographic History

DEARBORN, MICHIGAN: HERE IS WHERE I TOLD YOU NOT TO buy that fucking 7-Eleven franchise. You couldn’t even remember to pick up the kid from the sitter, so how were you going to keep track of how many Hot Pockets to buy and whether or not the hot dogs had been cooking for days or weeks? How much green shit to put in the Slurpee machine?

Existential Suffering, USA: Here is where I understand our complaints have been vague. I understand it is off-putting to you, to your obsession with a certain certainty.

Fort Wayne, Indiana: Here is where I used to think you had given your whole body to Jesus Christ, all those delicious lusts and longings. I used to admire your purity, so unsullied that you could not even touch a breast or kiss a mouth.

Columbia City, Indiana: Here is where I read them all, book after book in the Columbia City Central Library. Here is where I learned about myths and maps. Here is where I traced my pink-sparkled fingernail over the lines that my parents traveled, over the landscape of the past. Here is where I learned what vagrants we are, we whose people were farmers once. Tied to the land for years, we were pushed out, exiled as Ahasuerus.

Here, too, is where I dreamed of futures: all those unspoiled dots, waiting to expand into towns, into cities, into grand tall buildings and crowds of people all waiting for something to happen. Here, too, is where I dreamed of the moon: round and open and waiting to give us everything we needed.

Dead center of my heart: Here is where you lived for a long time, before the kid was born, before you started drinking all day. Here is where you lived while I think we loved each other. At least, I loved you enough to feed us both for a while, enough to paper over the spreading damage. Here is where you kissed me and gave me a ring, and I believed in that diamond like I believed in fairy tales. Even though I was old enough to know neither was real.

Dearborn, Michigan: Here is where the milk went sour. And here is where the kids stole cigarettes when you were pumping gas. And here is where Ahmed got shot on the overnight shift, survived thank god or whoever. I got the call when you were dead drunk. I dropped the kid off at Mrs. Tiffany’s, called in sick to the pharmacy, and then I drove to St. Joe’s. They had Ahmed in a room, IV and all, but he said he was okay. I told him not to go back and he said he wouldn’t, said his brother owns a place, they do coffee and donuts, said he’d go work for him. Ahmed was so happy, more happy than I’d ever see him—usually he’s just like, Here’s your change and That’ll be sixteen twenty-five. The nurse came in and said visiting time was up now, and Ahmed reached out for my hand and patted it, like he was comforting me. It’s a new start, he said.

The muffled quiet of the womb: Here is where we got our new starts, our very first starts.

Huntersville, Indiana: Here is where I met you after my family moved, where I went to your youth group because I thought you looked like what Kurt Cobain might look like if he was a born-again. I sat on the carpet while everybody prayed, holding one hand up like they needed to ask god a question. Then everyone looked at me, and I didn’t say anything but inside I was like, Oh, fuck, no. But then you smiled at me, and I felt it then, that good feeling, and you nodded, like, Go on, and so I said Okay, Jesus can come into my life I guess. It made all those people so happy, and it made you happier, so I suppose it was a small thing. And you felt okay about loving me then.

Lansing, Michigan: Here is where we ended up, after the franchise went bust. You came home last Christmas, drank a case of Coors, and passed out in front of the tree. I had to haul your ass to the bedroom by myself because the kid was only three, and what was that going to do, her seeing you unconscious, all those crushed cans and tinsel and you under the soft red and white lights. You slept it off the next morning while the kid and I opened our gifts and then we left for good.

Underneath the sky somewhere between Michigan and Indiana and you: Here is the moon, that same shape I’ve been looking at since I was small and thought I might do bigger things. Now I’m the deserted bride howling up against it. It’s bigger and emptier than me. It’s something to hold my sorrows, I suppose. It’s something for you to remember me by.