In the Town Formerly Known as Torah
Three small bars
Two elementary schools
One Catholic church
Social capital mattered, but
My family didn’t attend church
So, we didn’t fit in
Walking to school was harrowing
Four blocks of unknown danger
Lots of hiding places for bullies
People kept their doors unlocked
Until JW was abducted
Free-wheeling childhood was over
Everyone’s business out in the open
Endless meddling and gossip
Your reputation precedes you
Moved to the big city
When I was seventeen
Relieved for the fresh start
Separating the Signal from the Noise
There’s some value in being alone
No one moves your stuff or steals the blanket when you sleep
But the voices in your head get louder
Until they settle down when you listen
Out in the world, everything is noise
People talking over each other in futile attempts to be heard
And no one ever paid attention to the man behind the curtain
Too busy doom scrolling social media, getting a fix
Too busy being palatable to the collective
Just so they won’t be voted off the island
Scared of being inside this moment
Unfiltered, raw, and real
Fall or Fly
It’s a pervasive thing
This insecure desperation to hold on
Clinging to anything to stop the free fall
I’ve been divesting myself of social comforts
That often felt more uncomfortable
Than learning how to be alone
Taught at a young age to fall in line
I didn’t learn to use my voice, until finding myself
In places where it was necessary
In order to survive
Maybe it takes losing the ground beneath me
To figure out how to fly
Skaja Evens is a writer and artist living in Southeast Virginia.
She edits It Takes All Kinds, a litzine published by Mōtus Audāx Press. She’s
been published in Spillwords Press, The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey
Review, The Crossroads Lit Magazine, Blue Pepper, and Synchronized Chaos. She
can often be found listening to music, considering the impossible, and enjoying
her cats’ antics.
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