how to walk the tightrope of distance, or how to be an acrobat

By Caitie L. Young

first, text her good morning; let it stand as 

an omen for the day, the day she hasn’t met 

yet, the days ahead of her. 

when she’s awake (because she sleeps

like a cat, but you love that about her), 

tell her about your day––the way you woke 

up to your real cat chirping at the window 

at the birds like a bird herself, tell her you want 

to be a bird (sometimes), ask her what 

she would be, ask about her (really, never

stop asking about her), let her talk, let her 

talk politics in rambles, find love between

Bernie Sanders jokes and the West Wing, 

talk about her cat, talk about the way she slept, 

if she slept, if she wandered through a dream or two, 

believe her when she says she thought of you. 

laugh out loud when she tells you she’s texting you

through voice text, (which only your mother

does, but you still love it about her), laugh at the 

image of her in her kitchen––the one you’ve 

never seen––her hands covered in pomegranate 

juice, seeds falling out and in, the red milk 

slipping from the fruit to hug her fingers, stick

to her skin and stain it, leaving traces of its crimson

pathways like tattoos, the ‘o’ of her mouth, how 

she might look as she cleans herself up, think what

you would say if you were with her, if there were

stains on your hands too, and would you dance with her,

would you both be lopsided in laughter, but really the 

point is to think of her, and tell her that you think 

of her and believe her when she says she thinks of you. 

---

Caitie L. Young (she/they) is a poet and fiction writer in Kent, Ohio. They graduated from Kent State University with a B.A in English; their poems have appeared in Luna Negra, Welter online at the University of Baltimore. They are also the first-place recipient of the 2020 and 2021Wick Poetry Undergraduate Scholarship.