"I Would Make You a Playlist of Our Road Trip But I Am Not Sure We Remember the Same Stops

A diner in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
In Muscogee county.
My sister lives in a Muscogee county, too. In Georgia.
She is miles away.
You are miles away,
in Broken Arrow, in the diner, with me.
Your Kia, in view from our booth where
just you
enjoy the highways on the map and
just I
enjoy the pancakes and coffee. It could never be
us.
Just you and just I and the miles between Phoenix and a diner in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Your Kia in Phoenix,
just you and just I.
Would you meet me in Tulsa, you asked me in Phoenix.
I think I could find you in Tulsa, I say when I am with you in Phoenix.
In your Kia.
I think we could be us in Indio, I say when I am with you in Indio.
I think
just you and just I
could become
us
anywhere.
I never needed to see the miles on the odometer add up.
I never needed the map, the highways, the red dirt, the Hole in the Rock, the distance between the lake at Apache Junction and the nearest Love’s truckstop. You were reading a novel I bought you at the lake in the no wake zone, but a boat splashed you anyway. I told you Love’s had the best lemonade around and you said to me
you sure know your truck stops.
You told me we could change our names and fake our deaths once we reached the Maricopa county line. You believed the good, simple life could start for us in Oaxaca, Mexico.
You drove over the river at the Tempe city limits when you told me you wanted to be free and that you had never told anybody this but sometimes at night you wished God would make you a bird so you could fly
far, far away.
We could always go to Oaxaca, Mexico,
I said.
I have been practicing my Spanish.
You read me your favorite philosophy quote in Sedona and got it tattooed in Flagstaff, during the 45 minute drive in between I fell asleep at the wheel. In Tonopah I told you the green of your eyes matched my salsa verde at the food truck and you laughed.
I only ever needed just you and just I.
In a diner in Broken Arrow.
How far away is your sister, you asked.
In Muscogee county, Georgia.
Miles, I said.
Miles away,
from a diner in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma,
miles between just you and just I.