Some states break your heart with bad breakups. North Dakota breaks it with a windchill that files a restraining order against your face, a drive where you pass more grain elevators than stoplights, and a gas station hotdish situation that somehow slaps harder than it has any right to. You love it. It hurts. Both things are true at the exact same time, like a bitter oil boom romance that ended when the rig moved on.
This is for anyone who left and still thinks about the sky out there, or anyone who stayed and curses it every January while refusing to move. Walleye cravings, lefse guilt, that one stretch of interstate where your phone just gives up. Heartbreak with a 701 area code.
Soft enough to live in, built to survive laundry day and whatever the forecast decides to do next. Roomy, cozy, and tough enough for the four seasons we get here: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.
