VA lives outside Seattle, WA, with her human and animal family. When not writing, she enjoys ice skating, reading, and working on her art. Her work has appeared in Literary Heist, Ignatian Literary Magazine, Five on the Fifth, Lumina Journal,  Panoplyzine Magazine, The Basilisk Tree, Remington Review,  Figwort, and Homimum Journal. She also recently published a poetry collection through Kelsay Books.

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Time Traveler

Cigarette lit, bummed from the collegiate stranger on the corner, we go vibrating like an out of balance washing machine down a deserted highway through the vacant space of our state to see Fugazi play at some out of the way club smack in the center of a nowhere town in your refurbished mail truck, a tin can inherited from your rich father who recently retired from his post as Postmaster, a sort of vehicle that lacks a real passenger seat or a door that shuts out the cold or the noise or the pavement glaring up at me as I hang on for dear life through each curve with only the aftermarket seat belt you installed when you decided a milk-crate would make a great aftermarket seat to save me
the cigarette, lit, though, never leaves my lips

Decades later,
my
midnight traveler,
my
morning coffee friend,
I must say as though it were then, us again, on that road barreling toward Fugazi, passing another mile-high snowbank, watching an invisible car
zip by, probably on their way home, smartly outsmarting us and the storm,

I am
sorry

I will
not

marry
you

in the garden, in the funeral suit you borrowed from your father—
though he claims, as you are putting it on, to be unsure if he can spare it and takes the time to name the names of his friends who are dropping like flies as proof—
while you strum your guitar
off-key
and hum softly
off-key
and wait with both feet bravely touching the ground and with your hair,
so dark and shiny
it is a lake that makes me
crave water

Instead
of a vow of forever, I will remember waking on the day you slipped the picture of Henry Rollins under my door—
because I loved him and all of his brooding anger—
as your way of saying
sorry for our worst and last fight, the last and only time I told you no

moved by the kindness of your gesture, I went padding barefoot across the hall to thank you, to
wrap you in an
“I’m sorry, too”
hug, only to find you gone, though, right then, I thought you were only gone for the weekend,
home,
to bring half your belongings because this Gen X disaster was unraveling during the last days of our final semester, and we were all toting bags and over-loaded
boxes

later, I learned I was wrong, you were not eating mom’s chili and watching the game with dad, you were gone-gone, suddenly a ghost to everyone, even your best friend who thought to put up
“Have you seen this guy?”
posters but didn’t because you were you, and deep down, we all sort of saw this coming,
though,
we never imagined the sorrow the river that followed would bring

If
I’d known slaloming through a blizzard in your Richard Scarry car to see a band would be our last good day, I wouldn’t have complained so much about the milk-crate seat that left diamond-shaped
divots in my bottom, and I wouldn’t have lost sight of you in the smoky fog of the club and let your body slip between the mashing bodies into the restroom where you spent the entire show getting high
alone

I
would have ignored my wide-winged sparrow as it arced its weightless body against the white light of Boston’s sky and stayed, had you a brood of sticky-fingered minions who sang off-key in wide, sidewalk circles for ice cream and your favorite beer

At
the very least,
if I’d known anything drowning in those black-bottomed days,
I would have said
a
proper
goodbye

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Ferry

We’re here, land is in sight.
The bell chimes and a robotic voice booms over the loudspeaker, announcing our arrival, reminding us to collect our belongings, and thanking us for our patronage and our cooperation, giving us all ample time.
Still, when the yellow vests raise their hands and signal for us to start our engines, many will fumble with keys, locks, and jackets.
Doubtful “Are you sure we parked here?” looks and panicky “You had them last!” accusations will fly like seagulls over hoods and across rows.
Minutes of confusion will wash like water over the deck, soaking the passengers in the inevitable, the unavoidable consequences of their decision.
Not me, though, my keys are in hand, and I am ready to disembark
and begin.

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Swing Set

to escape,
one foot in
front of the other,
nowhere brings me
any
closer 
to you, spent, a
delusion,
traveling backward
to the swing set,
there,
where I find you,
swaying gently,
on the
broken
playground
of my
mind