Distance is typically measured in miles — or meters, if you’re into that. It’s a pretty uninvolved, numerical concept. For example, there are approximately 3109 miles between Smalltown, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles, California.

But there are side effects to physical distance that are not so easily quantified. There’s the handicap of three time zones; a contact list that’s saturated with midwesterners and east coasties; a numbing realization that, although you miss people, it’s nobody in particular.

Being separated by a literal desert starts to get into your head.

The Edge of the World is Further than You’d Think is a narrative poem that gives physical form to the abstract, psychological effects of being 3109 miles away.