~
Adolescence
Somewhere east of here a city is burning
and you still only know how to say your own name.
There’s a kind of sin in indecision, they tell you,
as they head out noble, laden with cartridges.
So you search the corners of your life softly
into the morning for the orders you lost.
It’s August and the trees are bleeding.
They invite you back. When you were young
you felt some communion with them, wanted
every bit of your ivy covered body to return to the dirt.
The only sin is separateness, but the bleached earth
shows no footsteps. You will not find your way back.
~
Avital Balwit studies politics and philosophy. She writes short stories, essays, and poetry. She has work forthcoming in Addition Magazine, World Weaver Press, The Society of Misfit Stories, and Pop Up UK. She has been a finalist in essay contests for the New York Times and The Economist, and she won The Atlantic’s 2020 poetry contest. She was born (and temporarily resides) in Portland, Oregon.