A Sunday series from RVA Magazine featuring writers from Richmond and Virginia
Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s Sunday series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. Each week, we feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now.
In this week’s collection, Breanna Hoch unearths the quiet strength behind resilience, the ache of absence, and the deep-rooted love that we carry for others, sometimes long after they’re gone, or even while they remain. These pieces feel like confessions written in the margins, stitched together with imagery from backyard flowers, family wounds, and the soft sharpness of truth.
This is Breanna’s first time publishing in Writer’s Block.
If you’d like to be featured, send your work to hello@rvamag.com with the subject line “Writer’s Block.”
How Villains Are Made
by Breanna Hoch
Every time I think,
I sink deeper.
Every monster you meet
was not always a reaper.
I see you still—
not in dreams
but in nightmares
and screams.
A soliloquy of rage
beats beneath my skin.
Paint me with adoration,
then call me Anne Boleyn.
Treasonous bitch—
the crowd will all cheer.
But someone, somewhere,
will shed a tear—
decades later,
when the story is made clear.
Ticking and ticking
until the fulmination.
And still—
some part of me listens.
Still aches to be forgiven,
despite the decimation.
This version of me
rose up from a well,
covered in sludge,
in paper
and mud.
Fingers bloodied
from my grasp,
voice barely
a rasp.
I’m stronger now—
and this part
will last.
Go ahead and laugh.
I’ll lay on the ground.
I’ll sink down.
I’ll watch the clouds
and beg for mercy now.
Villains
are made—
not born.
Lola
by Breanna Hoch
The first time I saw Yarrow I grabbed at it and got my hand smacked away
We don’t touch those, they say
The second time I saw Yarrow I sat down on the ground, studied it now,
its tiny flowers looking up at me with a frown
Like you it was native here, planting its roots and growing all around,
spreading like vines through a generation of time
It was cut and abused, always used for remedies and for delivering news
And for what
Your blood was Yarrow, harrowing in its ability
to coagulate from the wounds of others
but somehow never your own
Its strength and resilience can ride out any storm
seemingly unscathed—
but at what cost, at what break
You are the Yarrow that grows in the sunniest part of our backyard
There since we were children, steady and strong,
never too hard, never on guard
You were the Yarrow all along.
A Letter to My Father
by Breanna Hoch
Dear Father—
No… that’s too formal.
Dear Dad—
I don’t know what to say.
Let me start again.
Dear Daddy—
Today I stubbed my toe on the corner of the door,
and when I yelped,
I couldn’t help but want my dad.
Dear Daddy—
Yesterday, my car broke down.
The tire went flat.
It was raining.
I called you—four times.
You didn’t pick up.
So I fixed it myself.
Are you proud?
Dear Daddy—
Ten years ago, I sat in a hospital bed,
teeth clenched,
snarling at the doctor
who dared to tell me
what I was feeling wasn’t real.
And you—
you held my hand.
Dear Daddy—
I got married.
He knows how to take care of me
the way you always did.
Dear Dad—
I miss you.
Dear Daddy—
I love you.
Samantha
by Breanna Hoch
Sometimes I walk into vintage shops and the air
smells just right in a way that makes me search
for you
Not old or musky but elusive as much as it’s
steadfast. As if it’s always been there, waiting
Resilience is something I thought I felt in the
depths of my bones but never could articulate
until I saw it in your eyes
I don’t think I have ever seen you crack but I
can feel the fractures under your skin when I
hug you deeply and inhale
Your heart is three times too big for your body
and it beats to the tune of the names of the
people you love
Oh what an honor it is to have my name
breathlessly pounding in your chest
I hope it never stops beating.
Main image by Nina
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