Wanderlust

The pulse of the city is becoming my own. I woke up with a thrumming headache this morning. The night and the dawn are a patchwork in my aching head. When I walk down the street, steam ripples off the pavement, as intangible as my disintegrating memories. How is my stranger? I wonder. The one from last night’s club. Gone now. He’s returned back to his own life after our brief collision: my drunken frame hung off his neck. His glassy brown gaze still holds me. Power lines cross my heart. My eyes swim in the summer sweat and rain.

From Guest Contributor Siri Harrison

Addiction

Juliana knew it was psychological. But the distress of withdrawal was real.

Her travel wanderlust was more than an indulgence. It was a craving deep in her cells. Journeys broke the shackles of the mundane and had become the embodiment of her independence.

Her last fix was fifty days ago. She kept distracted with work and avocation diversions. Yet, her mind would drift to the need, and normally steady hands would tremble.

When the seductive siren called, Juliana’s immobility became a shrinking coffin. Claustrophobic and suffocating.

As the taxi dropped her at the airport, she was able to breath. Freedom.

From Guest Contributors A.L. Gabriella and Billy Ray

Wanderlust

At age eleven I begged to travel to Venice, to see those water streets.

“My desert baby has wanderlust,” Mama laughed.

On weekends, if we had money for gas, she’d tell me, “Pick a direction.”

We stopped at roadside attractions to buy those tiny spoons. We ate questionable tamales. We took pictures with four different Paul Bunyan statues.

For my sixteenth birthday, we followed highway signs promising The Thing. Surprise! It was a fake mummy. Stomach dropping, I realized people like us never saw the Grand Canal.

“We’re lucky,” Mama whispered. “Italians don’t even dream about seeing something like this.”

From Guest Contributor L.L. Madrid