Page 13 of Wayfarers

was roughly my age.

Dawn caught me staring and made

a contemptuous noise in her throat. Trust fund

vanlife baby, she snarled. Dawn had joined us

in Sedona about six months prior

with her boyfriend, Rowdy, and I suspected

her trustfunder kid accusation was mostly confession.

Back to the Girl—she reminded me of this:

For years, I’ve left my heart as a trail of breadcrumbs

strewn across America’s highways, falling

in love a thousand times for five- or ten-minute stretches

with girls I wanted to know.

What was the point of allowing myself

anything more? My life was vapor.

Fog before the sunrise.

I was tired of a freedom that gave

no breath to love.

I wanted the simple pleasure

of being with someone longer

than five days, the way

characters did in the candy-colored

books I got from Little Free

Libraries and returned two time zones away.

But to do that, you need a home.

I had known what it meant to have

a home once. I was young but I don’t remember

being gnawed on by any Beast when I last lived

in one. I wanted that again, to live in the same place

for a whole week, a month, a year.

This awakening was the inch of water rising