The Place Exchange

Cleveland, and surrounds Sarabeth Domal 1. on the balls of your feet as to not creak the floorboards. your keys from the table, cradle them in your hand as to not echo, the cold.

Slam and I do mean slam the screen door, fracture the plastic, retribute, wake up Detroit Shoreway. to Huntington Beach then. Eyes straight ahead, in through your nose, out through your mouth, glacier air reaching the pinnacle of my lungs, northern wind from your approach and dissolve seeing to the outermost layer of my visage, threatening to leave a thing behind.

I don’t like to talk while running.

2.

Anna almost misses the right turn into the parking lot through no fault of her own, I should have been navigating but I was thinking about how this road would lead me directly to Hilliard. I read about Hilliard recently, in a book about the American opioid crisis. There was an anecdote about a young mother who overdosed in the parking lot of a supermarket next to the chicken shop we used to eat at, as a treat.

It was alarming, but also a friendly reminder that my residence was a dream state, boots never on the ground. He texted me last year to say that he bought his mom a gun for protection, she’s a math teacher, I guess I really don’t know what it’s like in Central Ohio anymore.

3.

I also don’t know if I fell in love with you when I first saw the way 6