The first man I loved would prop the fridge open

with his foot and chug two litres of water from 

an old green soda bottle that we’d torn the label off of. 

He’d tell me he’d earned it, his two litres of water and 

his foot prop­ping open the door, because when he crossed 

borders, they had no water. And his feet bled. 

And he kept walking. Because he needed some­thing more. 

I crossed a border to love him, but 

I did it on an air­plane and we never talked about 

what that meant for the dis­tances between us 

and we didn’t have the lan­guage, so we never tried. 

I crossed a border to love him, and he always said 

I walked like I was afraid of trip­ping over something, 

and maybe my feet knew some­thing I didn’t, but 

I kept cross­ing borders to love him and even­tu­al­ly I crossed too far. 

And he stood there, with a smirk and his foot

holding open the door, telling me he’d 

earned it. And I didn’t have the language. 

He’d crossed borders, and was forced to cross back, 

because when you walk through the desert and your 

feet bleed and you want some­thing more, you’ll 

never be as safe as you need to be. 

So they put cuffs on him that I never saw, and he 

sat in a cell, or at least I think it was a cell, for 41 

days and I sat in a college class­room, and we never 

talked about what that meant for the dis­tances between us. 

And he called me collect from the hallway
outside of his cell, and I gripped my flip phone in the hallway

outside of my college class­room, and we 

didn’t have the language. 

And he crossed borders back to his 

mother, and I crossed borders because I didn’t have a 

mother, and we never 

talked about that either. 

And I crossed borders, and he dragged me 

across borders, and we lived there with the 

dis­tances between us. Until I found the language.