"Neverland, New Mexico"
A short story and an EXCLUSIVE by Kristen Zory King! We're getting literary!
Delighted to bring you a short story from pal
’s new collection Ladies, Ladies, Ladies. I discovered Kristen thanks to , who sent me a poem of hers entitled “i keep a list in my phone of all the things i wish i could tell you, like” which ripped through me because of my two-years-gone best friend. If that hole will in any way ever be filled, this poem is one of those handfuls of dirt. What lovely dirt. I am grateful for the dirt.Thank you Kristen for sharing “Neverland, New Mexico” and an abstract about this story she wrote JUST for us! This short story has never before been published and so I am happy to give it a digital home until the release of Ladies, which I preordered and you should too!
Kristen’s Abstract
When I was 24, I packed my 2002 Honda Accord full of all the books, clothes, and small trinkets I could fit, and drove from Las Vegas to New York, leaving the boy I once thought I would marry behind.
I had been living in the desert for a year, hiking red rocks, binge eating burritos, and hoping desperately that I could find a way to love this boy again—love him in the way I had when we had first met half a decade before, all shy smiles, burned CDs, and car makeouts in the parking lot of the local Mexican restaurant in our small, college town. He was my first real partner, as funny as he was kind. But after nearly six years together and a cross country move from my home on the East Coast to join him on a grand adventure out West, I realized I couldn't stay. I was no longer in love, I hadn’t been for some time. I was simply stuck. And this known and steady march toward a future waiting right in front of me was not one I wanted, though I had spent years building it alongside him.
The idea of leaving scared me shitless. Vegas was warm and bright. It offered me a promise with a diamond shine. To stay would mean an engagement and then a mortgage, one kid and then, in all likelihood another. I understood the shape of these traditional markers, had watched friend after friend before me choose them, waited patiently for the time I, too, would sew my shadow to them. I didn’t know what leaving would mean or where I would end up. I didn’t know who I could be without this sweet and caring boy reading quietly in bed beside me. But to stay would mark an end to a story I hoped was just beginning. And so I left, turning the car radio as loud as it would go, as I watched Paradise Valley fade in my rearview mirror.
In the ten years since, I have written dozens of stories and poems that feature or reference Wendy Darling, including the below, a flash fiction piece that is one of eighteen vignettes from my forthcoming chapbook Ladies, Ladies, Ladies. In some ways, this strikes me as odd. I'm not a Disney adult. I've only seen Peter Pan a handful of times. I am surprised to trace the ways Wendy has wound and whispered through my writing. But I think, on a level conscious or subconscious, I have always appreciated the choice that Wendy made in leaving Neverland. It couldn't have been easy, all that magic around her and a cute boy to boot. But I think I knew then what Wendy knew when she returned home: if I had stayed in Vegas, married a boy I didn't love, tried to fit myself into a life that looked just like the ones around me, I would have never been able to forgive myself for all the things I would not become. I needed to be brave enough to grow up.
It’s not a perfect metaphor. It doesn’t have to be. There have been many times in my life that I have looked back on my decision with a sense of impatient regret, wondered what would have happened if I had stuck to the path laid cleanly before me. But the day I left my lover was the day I decided to grow into the person I wanted to be, a decision I have made countless times since. And while that version of Neverland may not be one I’ll ever find my way back to, I trust the magic that lies ahead.
Neverland, New Mexico
The only time Wendy reads her horoscope is when she is stoned, but as she has been stoned for the better part of three years now, she understands her heart more as celestial being than animal object. It started out as a way to help her sleep, one restless night turning into a dozen and then a dozen more and soon she was ready to try anything and, remembering the sweet burn of her teenage years (the years after, of course, when she understood in totality the depth of her decision, that she could never go back, never, never), found a boy down the street to sell her an eighth, his small nose pert and eyes darting in a way that felt familiar, the flower harsh and dry but good enough to help her brain slow mercifully as her body wove into the quilt beneath her. A cancer cusp, Wendy is never more than one bad day away from leaving it all behind. And why not? Try as she might, she can never quite find her way back to the one place she knows as home, though the route maps hot through her veins. What would be so bad about a clean slate? America, maybe. New Mexico, with its desert sky and high noon. Wendy reads her Sun sign first, and then her Rising, ending with Moon and occasionally Venus, seeking and seeking until she finds what she is looking for: a compass reaching right on toward morning, a calm for this itch, shallow as a scab. Better yet are the signs, good omens—an orange peel withered on the sidewalk when she’s only just dreamed of eating clementines with her mother; her brothers’ names written in the corner of a library book; the fairylike tinkle of a wind chime on a walk around town—each a small sliver of starlight, a humble invitation to begin again. Right now, they say. You don’t need to stay sewn to your shadow. Fight hook and crook for this life of yours. Don’t ever beg for mercy. Assume, always, that dawn will arrive and with it, mischief, mermaid song, magic. Isn’t all you need faith, trust, a pinch of pixie dust? At night, frost sits at Wendy’s window, cracked slightly to let out the smoke and stale air from her lungs. Squinting toward the horizon, she allows red rocks to rush her vision. Mist off distant mountain. Cacti with virgin bloom.
Kristen Zory King is a writer based in Washington, DC. Recent work can be found in Electric Lit, The Citron Review, Emerge Literary Journal, and HAD, among other publications. Her chapbook of vignettes, Ladies, Ladies, Ladies, will be released with Stanchion in February 2025. In addition to her work on the page, Kris is also a creative teaching artist and yoga instructor. She is currently at work on a project exploring vocation, wonder, and the human spirit. Learn more, join a workshop, or be in touch at www.kristenzoryking.com (or here!).
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The Wendy metaphor of being brave enough to grow up is actually so great. I'll admit I never really thought about Wendy's journey much, despite my absolute favorite take on Peter Pan being Hook with Wendy played by the incomparable Maggie Smith. Lovely writing - thank you for sharing!
The mention of hiking Red Rock immediately created an itch in me to touch grass though, as I'm reading this in my office, and I am now about to text my brother to plan a hiking trip.