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.

+

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.

+

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.

+

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.

+

KRISTEN HENDERSON

I am a former jo…