Tightrope walker Image by iStock

Editor’s Note: The Forward is featuring essays, poems and short stories written for our Young Writers Contest. Today’s entry was written by Ana-Sophia Mostashari, a 17-year-old student at Georgetown Day School in Bethesda. MD. You can find more work from our young writers here

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Contestant: Ana-Sophia Mostashari is a student at Georgetown Day School in Bethesda, MD. Image by Courtesy of Ana-Sophia Mostashari

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This town stands on a tightrope.
A breeze threatens its stance.

The painted lips droop when left alone
or in a big enough crowd.

The mothers pray for their children.
And the children pray to never become their mothers.

The rich pretend to be normal.
The poor pretend to be normal.
The normal pretend to be happy.
And the happy have moved away.

Except one.
She lives by the river.
She is too naive for her years.
I can’t tell if her mind is light like her hair
or dark like her paintings.
She flounders to align two realities.

Light holds the truth,
yet shrouded in darkness
I dream.
Of California.

As if the breeze goes unnoticed there.
As if the lips are any less painted.

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