Wanderer

wan · der · er n. A philosopher of demolished rebar and the old women who sift it. A liver third transplanted into a new bio-sphere. Crabgrass working its way from yard to yard. It is no coincidence that the stress is on the first syllable, for the experience over a lifetime may leave one straining, anemic from cultural gathering, from shedding past acceptances and taking in a vast array of differences.

From the verb ‘to wander,’ as in:

wander (v.) 1. transitive. To be dropped off, penniless, at a fair, drifting through crowds. 2. transitive. To navigate thirteen schools by 10th grade, each a brief, forced relocation. 3. intransitive. To seek temporary shelter in a roadside trailer after running away. 4. intransitive. To build worlds within pages, a mind constantly adrift.

Forgotten at closing time, this is a person wandering, the -ing suffix marking continuous tense.

Few wanderers become past tense, having wandered. For an -ed, the wanderer must have stopped pulling at the strings of memories, stopped trying to tie them into themselves, no longer manipulating their core to strike balance in what they were to what they have become, instead choosing to revert to their root and suck dry the juice of their childhood.

Synonyms include: Outcast, space cowboy, seafarer, philosopher, The One Who Chained the Lives of Many into the Mind of The One, rebel, revolutionist, the child constantly outrunning a mother’s onslaught of husbands.

Mea Andrews

Mea Andrews is a writer from Georgia, who currently resides in Shenzhen. She has her MFA from Lindenwood University and is still trying to learn how to make writing profitable. You can find her in Gordon Square Review, Gutter, Orca, Oyster River, Potomac Review, and others. She was a 2022 Pushcart prize nominee, and had a poem up for Best of the Net. She has two chapbooks and poetry collections available for publication, should anyone be interested.