Happy Liang

dedicated to Han—the Chinese Girl I once left behind.

han: [v.] to regret

i wash mandarins in the kitchen basin, grasp at threads of a conversation
i used to know by heart.
once, my name was only
“Chinese Girl”.
mocking syllables echoed until ears bled numb.
i left my language behind with Chinese Girl for safekeeping
in a locked box with other precious things
like my dignity & love for mandarins.
i forget where i left the girl and the box.
now, i am only a chinese girl,
standing waist-deep
in a hundred square feet of regret.

han: [v.] to shout, to call out for (a person)

my waipo and i talk through an egg timer
giggle over the sizzle of oil in heat
gossip over flour-covered fingers
fight over chopped spring onions
cry over broken pork rib bones
sing over sticky rice shumai
laugh over burnt scallion pancakes
wei? can you hear me?

han: [n.] an ocean (away)

at 320 washington street i close my eyes
let the words emitted from old chinese radio
melt like butter on my tongue
let the chatter of a language that no longer belongs to me
engulf my mouth like salt water
let everything stop, for just a second.
it almost feels like home again.

han: [v.] to hold onto (something precious)

捧在手心怕摔了，含在嘴里怕化了，看在眼里怕丢了

I fear it will break, if I hold it in my hand
I fear it will melt, if I hold it in my mouth
I fear it will be lost, if I search for it.

 

Happy Liang is a sixteen-year-old writer living in Boston, MA. She was born in Shanghai. She can be found eating yummy food in the city, or gushing about her latest favorite existential book that questions life.

the
glassy
blue ocean
cuts curves into
our coast like a
shard of broken bangle
this is our silver
sand so soft you
see your steps
and those of
who came
before and before
and the language —
the language!
a cadence shaped and
reshaped by a
thousand tongues
this is our gold
here we
peel back our
skin and reveal
the hearts of our
ancestors still
beating here
our land shines
like an unhewn
jewel is
it any
wonder

they lusted after it?

 

 

Jyotsna Nair lives in Boston. In her free time, she enjoys visiting cafes and old bookstores. She is a firm believer in the power of banana bread.

My hair
When I don’t do it
Dress it up
It looks so
African
It detaches me from my face
White

Is race dysphoria a thing?

Society doesn’t seem to accept mixed
Never want to consider more than half and half
I am a mix of a complicated ancestry
When no one asks questions
Rather start conversations
Calling me white

How do I respond?
Do I?

Correcting gets so tiring
Shock gets so tiring
My sister looks me in my melanin filled eyes
And tells me I ignore my black side
I don’t tend to it
I try to be Palestinian
Strong and supportive and political
I try to be African
Lotioning my body
Fighting the tiger that is my hair
The thing I love
Yet hate
Gives identity
And takes

Being multiple things seems impossible
People judge me the moment they look at me
Some notice my hair
Few notice my lips
Some notice nothing
And me I stare at the empty mirror
I know there are no Jewish features
But I feel I see it
I see the Palestinian in my skin
And face
I feel the Jewish in my bones
The Guyanese in my hair
That damned European that curse my skin white
The Puerto Rican
Spain
And Portugal
I feel and see all of it

But when I walk out of my house
As cold and as rough as the sidewalks
And streets I step on
No one else sees it

Is it dysphoria?

That I can accept my body and it’s features and how they intertwine
Yet when I go outside nothing seems like mine

My body is a temple
Strong, sturdy
Riddled with culture on its walls

My mind has a lock
In my open hand the key

Take it
Use it

The easy solution
Although it may seem

Impossible
Impervious
Unfathomable

Just ask.

 

Marcus was born in Brooklyn, NY and has never moved. He is rooted in his heritage from being Guyanese to Puerto Rican as well as a Palestinian-Jew. He won an honorable mention at CCNY for his poem “other” and was a finalist for the Ned Vizzini Teen Writing contest. Marcus likes to keep himself busy, joining LAMBDA’s Writers in Schools Poetry Residency, Stanford’s Abolitionist Legal Writing Workshop, and he founded a Student Led Poetry Residency at his school. Marcus’ friends describe him as goofy, entertaining, clever, and caring. He has four sisters; Jazmine, Sierra, Destiny, and Sofia. His sisters inspire him to work harder in school and muddle through adversity both mentally and physically every day.

she’s caught between frames—
right hand blurred, reaching
for something beyond paper edges.
mom says you can’t capture lightning
but the camera tried anyway:
her laugh mid-spark, hair
a storm cloud of possibility.

this was before college applications,
before she learned to pose for expectations.
back when summer meant cut-off
shorts and raspberry-stained fingers,
when she still believed
the world could hold all
her wild without breaking.

now she sends photos from seattle,
perfectly filtered, properly posed.
but i keep this one magnetic
on my fridge: motion-smeared sister,
forever seventeen, eternally
suspended in the moment before change.

 

Emma Lopez is a high school junior from Austin, Texas. Their work has appeared in TeenInk, and they are currently working on their first collection of poetry. When not writing, they practice archery and sell watercolor paintings of Texas wildflowers.

I

crook of her elbow, heeled knead of her hand
flattens like smooth hull—billows yeasty sails
pale knuckles tugging taut saran wrap skin,
Nena² is all rose petal, wood cedar.
her voice softens, laundered faded cotton.
find her sweet lilt in her floral curtains
in crisp folds of her fragrance-laden blouse
find her visage in ceramic teapots
swooping spouts and porcelain filxhanë³
I find her bleeding heart wittled and flayed
in the carved wooden shqiponjë⁴ that she keeps
imposingly poised and dusted, top shelf.

aged hands that soap petaled fine china rims,
that peel and shrug coats of sweet boiled chestnuts,
pare saccharine frills of orange petticoats;
cornstarch sleeps in the bed of her fingernails
remnant bygone summers flit in her eyes.

 

powdered weathered palm blankets girlish hands
fingers like running water, skin of wax.
my torn peta⁵

sobs in flour smudged fear

—a cobwebbed feeble childish mimicry.
she drapes it across the back of her hands
a lacy veil kissing sharp pristine wedding ring
dusts off speckled black shawl, black apron, black
pleated dress, where at night she is cloistered
worrying thirty-three oak prayer beads.
her touch is a smoothed caress, silk on glass
she crimps its thin frayed edges just the same.

II

nacre-beaded brow, sheen like onion tunic
summer’s dew dribbles from out glassy eyes
traces the harsh slope of your nose, maps the
sharp jade cliff of your shoulder blade dropping
laves your spine as tidepool meets aching shore.

sun kisses black pine-casted cordate shade
on your sun warmed cheek, like hot idle stone,
filters across edge of dark cropped hair
eclipsed—golden and blinding solar crown.

breeze murmurs sweet nothings upon your nape
cups the conch of your ear with tepid palms
plucks and keeps a well-pleated daisy, still
white after years between wedding gown folds.

 

1. Month of August

2. Term of endearment used for grandmothers; also, mother

3. Tea cups

4. Eagle, nominative singular

5. Phyllo dough sheets

 

 

Emma Kraja is a young author and illustrator and is currently a senior at Staten Island Technical High School in New York. She is a New York Times Coming of Age winner with many publications as well as a writer for Teen Magazine. Penning pieces often centered around prevalent social issues and cultural identity, Emma Kraja has always found a creative outlet in poetry. Her own family immigrated from Albania following the downfall of the autocratic regime, and this is reflected in her poems, paying tribute to her cultural identity and her childhood.