There is no return.
SOAR BY KRISTEN HENDERSON 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 104
Swing, swing. Fly, fly.
That’s all she knows, so she flies.
Her tie-dyed fedora floats into the rainbowed sky.
There is no return.
She almost loses herself.
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Pleased that she didn’t or wishes that she had.
At apex, her maroon-lipsticked mouth takes in a collection of gnats, which transform into a sturdy strong man. A young one.
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Soon, the intruder is too cumbersome.
A flick of a coated tongue, she extracts him.
A fraying shoelace embeds in a chipped molar.
Her tongue flip-flops to unstick the intruder.
Bile comes up.
Projective vomit.
He’s gone.
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Replacement: a blond baby boy.
Infant is smothered, glued to her chest.
She pumps her legs with such force that they hit her rear, sending the duo into the top of a cloudy, pillowy volcano. The volcano’s apex is frigid. She envelops the baby.
A hairless, shivering man, clinging to the volcano’s insides, stretches out a Spiderman arm.
Now the baby. Fly, fly.
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KRISTEN HENDERSON
I am a former jo…