Silt Magazine

Welcome Home!

She escorts me to my room
heels echo on the tile floor
of an endless hallway

41 hours, 3 continents
home, for now
between two worlds
that know me
hemispherically
one half at a time

2 blankets, 19 C°
home, for now
once the water
temperature warms,
as the lights
stop their flicker,
until the wifi
reconnects, to share
my location
with some, to hide
my location from others

7 meetings, 16 days
home, for now
where soldiers
stop cars, check credentials
while I write memos about
policies to implement about
conflicts to negotiate

2 holidays, 1 death
1 celebration of life
Unlucky timing for that trip,
huh. We wish you were
here. Can’t you just come
back early?

Home, for now
where tear-stained pillow
cases are replaced
each morning by
housekeepers who keep
sheets crisp enough to
remind me they’re not
mine

Welcome Home!

Thank you for your service
to our country.
He nods approvingly, checking
my diplomat passport
under the presidential portrait

I smile back, wondering
why he thanked me,
a colleague, a peer, a member
of the public we both serve —
maybe it doesn’t matter
I smile back, humbled by
experiences unprocessed,
filed away where thoughts go
to grow

For what does it mean
to walk outdoors
inside concrete walls,
a piece of the same sunny
sky above the compound?

For what does it mean
to ignore armed patrols
surveilling between desks,
while carrying on with
peace talks?

For what does it mean
to work for clients
at home and at home,
balancing what is and
what ought to be
but what cannot be
because of clients
at home and at home?

For what does it mean
to travel here and there
in body, mind, spirit?
My loneliest hours spent
thinking, wishing, waiting
in solitude on the airplane

Welcome Home!

Dad, teary this time
We saw the news
not knowing what it meant,
but knowing it was why
I was there

You look good! Thrilled to see
me as he remembered,
recognizable in form—
though maybe not content

Stories unshared until
documents declassified
patch pieces together

News clips tether my realities
to big-talkers with opinions
grounded not in the soil
where the groundnuts grow
under the watchful eyes of
women tending to families and
crops together,
grounded not in the climate
that punishes for daring to
exist in the places they have
always called home

So, how was it?

Where to begin a story
with roots deeper than the
trees growing in the only yard
he’s ever known?

Between two worlds,
illustrating realities with
imagined colors that
a mind’s eye has not seen

Victoria Avis (she/her) is a Master in City Planning candidate at MIT. Her multidisciplinary research explores international development, political theory, and urban planning in Global South contexts.