“you’d better turn back
until you find something
familiar. Your soul
is at stake.
These are the lives we have chosen,
so I don’t know if it can ever be
too late….”
— from “The mangled veins”
In a world that doesn’t really make sense to anyone, we have to choose whether we are ready to give our destination over to whatever might be out there, or choose our own. While it can never be too late, it can be not enough, or just enough, or meaningless. But when most things are stuck somewhere between our dreams and the idea of reality, we tend to cling to some extrinsic hope – real or not.
While Nicole Hennessy’s Gypsy Queen (Crisis Chronicles Press) is by no means a religious text, it is an examination of what comes next, why, and how to do see it before we get there. It’s a world where horoscopes don’t matter and dead ends are plenty. It’s where love begins and ends. It’s where you “tell me everything about me,” but leave me empty. But does it really matter if “I’m alone like always?”
If we are to assume that we create our own destinations, then Gypsy Queen proffers that we might be able to do the same thing again, and again, and again until in some future life we get it right. Because really, “Nothing’s changed / in the neighborhood I grew up in…. / The same / mural flaking specks of paint only noticeable in their absence.” And if nothing has changed, who are we to think we can ever leave?
Purchase your copy of Gypsy Queen from Crisis Chronicles Press.