Time Travelers in Love

I’m not a traveler anymore.

At least not right now.

Right now I am someone I never thought I could be. A person who works two jobs to pay rent, to pay the bills, who deep down dreams about when the next trip will end, when I can come home instead of dedicating hours, days, months to the next endeavor.

A partner. The future, now firm and tangible instead of some far off whisper of reality. I never thought I would be writing this. That I found someone. That I actually found someone, the one. The one that could help me break open my chrysalis and unfold my wings. It took time. A lot of time, and trials, and tribulations, ad nauseum, ad infinitum but I found the person I wanted to be with. The person I needed to be with, who actually understood me before they knew me.

Ironic. Because I never wanted to stop traveling, but that is what it took to actually find the right person to be with. Figured out that all it took to make love stay was to stay for a while and invite it in. That I needed to stop so I could eventually run into you, drawn together by the invisible strings that bind this universe. You are my partner. Time-travel companion. And now we are setting forth, each day a new adventure, side-by-side with our partner.

I’m not a traveler anymore, but that’s ok because I am a time traveler now and I finally have someone to time-travel with.

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M. A. Chavez

Is co-founder of Vagrant. Anonymous. He recently finished writing his first graphic novel, Anno Exitus, which should be illustrated by mid-2018 and is moving onto editing his debut novel.

What did it take for you to find your true love?

Or if you haven’t what do you think it will take?

Let us know what you think: Leave us a comment, connect with us at Facebook.com/VagrantAnonymous, on Twitter (@VagrantAnon) and Instagram (@VagrantAnonymous), or email us at VagrantAnonymous@gmail.com.

 

Let’s Talk About Sex(ual Assault)

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault, Depression, Self-Harm

This might be a little messy, in fact, part of me hopes it is.  . . .

I have spent a lot of time traveling and performing my art in various communities. So last year when I moved to a new city, I was excited to find that there was a fresh art scene just starting to take hold. A scene that I could become a part of and contribute to. After just a few months organizing with them, I showed up to an event. I was distraught because my most recent foray into dating had ended essentially before it began. The piece I had prepared was about repetition. How after you hear something enough times it starts to lose it’s meaning, like the word zipper, or the phrase, “it’s not you it’s me.” I was annoyed and frustrated that over the years of traveling I had become more accustomed to saying goodbye to people I love than to actually holding onto those people before I left. A little bit after I shared my piece and feeling some closure someone else came up to the mic. They shared a poem about identity, being cast as the other, being asked where you’re from because of melanin and other’s lack thereof, and about indigenous roots. The poem struck me because of the content, but also because of the poet. They were mesmerizing. Gorgeous, enthralling, handsome, so fierce and passionate it almost scared me.

The Scariest Part of Traveling, Part III: The Art of Saying Good-Bye

Even though I tried to prepare myself, even though I felt it coming, one cannot truly be ready to hear it . . .

Good-bye.

You never said those two syllables. They didn’t slip out of your lips and into the receiver. Your expansive vocabulary said it, but in a different way. Not in a definitive way. Not in a way that puts a period at the end. It was like a whisper, a secret. You never said it with words.

But you still did.

The Scariest Part of Traveling

is the thought of not traveling anymore…

After enough time, it becomes a companion, friend, family. Traveling. So, in a way, to stop traveling would be to lose a loved one. And when you’ve traveled primarily alone, like myself, you’re not only losing a loved one, but the only one that knows what you’ve been through. The only one that has been there through it all. The good and the bad. It loves you unconditionally, never asking too much of you or to be anything other then yourself.

It encourages you. Lifts you up. Teaches you to be strong and carefully nudges you in the direction you should be going. In this relationship you learn who you are. Your needs, wants, and desires. You learn your limits.

People come and go. Live and die of their own accord. But travel only dies when you neglect it.