Izzy Searle

Magic is
Wet clothes sticking to skin
Sinking boots, mud crawling in
Ink running through tangled footpaths
Scrambled grid references
Clouds dripping into fog
Draping over fences
Aching legs, blistered body
Kendal Mint Cake crumbs
Wind whipped cheeks
Sleet slithering through waterproofs
Blue lips and fingertips
Splashes of colour in the grey eclipse

Then turning the corner
To stumble upon sunflower fields
Stretching towards a horizon
Streaked with Love-in-a Mist blue

 

Izzy Searle is a neurodivergent poet from Sussex. Her writing is featured on the International Network of Italian Theatre and she has a poetry anthology in the process of publication. In her spare time, Izzy loves to hike and volunteer at Scouts.

谁知盘中餐

粒粒皆辛苦

–李绅

 

there’s an old poem every Chinese kid was made to memorize in school; it goes, every grain of rice is obtained with hardship; eat well the food God gave you. the other Chinese girls are size twos and zeros and wear brandy melville; i wonder if they listened.

I never wear low-waisted shorts because the sides of my stomach protrude like a swollen lip; aren’t those pants too tight for you, he says; eyes squinted like a hunter eyeing its prey; he almost steps forward. I almost step back.

I learned to look at my body the way my sister looked at her salad before pushing it to the side of her plate. my body was not my home, not the chafing of thighs or the way my chin sank into my neck when I smiled; if I could pinch off my skin like wet sand maybe I could mold myself into the swimsuit I bought two months ago.

you look just like your mother; words I never wanted to hear; he laughed at her and she began eating cabbage soup for breakfast and lunch and dinner, put three bowls of rice on the table instead of four. she doesn’t say grace anymore.

I cried at dinnertime and hid my tears in the broth of la mian; my grandmother slid a spoon across the table and it sputtered to a stop in front of me. dark except for the swinging lightbulb casting shadows in circles around the small wooden table.

nothing in our house goes into the trash before it goes into a plastic container for tomorrow’s lunch.

too much rice travels to your hips and your thighs; fried food makes your skin dry like parchment; no snacks no juice no fat remember press downwards on your uvula; whatever happened to li li jie xin ku?

I lost six pounds and the scale became my altar.

are those your sister’s shorts, he says, why does your ass stick out like that; i think, why are you looking at my ass why are you looking at my ass why are you looking at my ass why are you looking at my ass why are you looking

if our bodies are temples why are they defiled by men who think they are gods.

 

Lauren is a Singaporean writer currently residing in Bethesda, MD. She attended the University of Iowa International Program’s Between the Lines workshop, and is an editor for the MoCo Student newspaper. She can be found most often in the auditorium lighting booth, where she serves as Whitman Drama’s lighting director.

From an early age I was taught to be mindful of how I present myself.
Never walk in a store with my hood on.
Be careful with who I’m in public with.
Don’t draw too much attention.
Keep my pants pulled up.
Place my hands on the steering wheel if I’m pulled over.
Always be respectful, even if I’m disrespected.
Granted, these all have led me to be a very responsible person,
But I can guarantee there aren’t any white kids who have to know this.
Those kids don’t have to get “The Talk.”
Those kids aren’t told they can’t drive the car they want because they might get pulled over, because “they look suspicious” then get sent to jail. Or worse.
Those kids don’t have to change or cut their hair because “it doesn’t fit the standards of the school.”
Those kids don’t have to worry about their name being “proper” enough for the job they want.
Those kids don’t have to live with the fact that they could do everything right in life and still could be killed before their 20th birthday.
You may think these kids have it made—
But what they don’t have is pride.
No one can make me feel ashamed about the way I look.
Because that’s a huge part of why I am the person I am today.
I have the advantage, whether anybody sees it that way or not.

 

Being black is not something to overcome,
But something to embrace.
See my brown skin
All this melanin
Is a gift to me
Every “problem” it may come with
Is nothing I can’t handle
It’s nothing I haven’t seen before
Nothing new to me
And no one can make me feel ashamed for this brown skin.

 

DeAnthony Logwood is a junior at Overton High School. He has been a part of the Creative Writing Option program for three years. He is a part of the track/cross country team and is involved in JROTC and many other activities throughout school.

Our bus is stuck in traffic
and I’m late for lunch with my grandpa
because his silence makes me feel a little bit less lonely
in a world where it’s easier to forget
the deaths of old friends, the day’s list of tragedies.

I know he longs for fiction—
his home, by the bay, indestructible.
I once ran with innocence through the halls of his apartment,
but I no longer have that lens of childhood sweetness
or his escape from reality.
New York’s too cold tonight.
I shiver in the loss of naivete.

The bus lurches forward
in the city where it’s possible to be enveloped in the heat
of hundreds of apartment lights and still feel a chill
tremble through your heart.

They want me to be myself like a shark might be herself in a city aquarium
Motionless, encumbered by the glass.
I pretend like I’m told.

I am the only passenger left,
waiting to wade in the tide of unknown
undulate along the waves of my intuition,
and send ripples through the status quo,
but I am impatient.

It is now nighttime and for a fleeting moment
the chaos of the pandemic blurs into stillness.
I tell the driver what is beneath my kaleidoscopic eyes,
my truth fading into the endless cries of taxis
and the wispy strands of smoke rising from concrete.
Whether or not he listened,
I entered The Wild, glass shattered.

 

Gabrielle Beck is a junior attending Tenafly High School. When she is not writing or photographing, she can be found repurposing vintage denim. She is a finalist for New York Times “Coming of Age in 2020: A Special Multimedia Contest for Teenagers,” and recognized by the National Council of Teachers of English. Her writing and photography has been featured in Kalopsia Literary Journal, Cathartic Literary Magazine, Young Writers Project, and Written by the Youth.

when they ask you why you do not whisper, tell them fear was not buried in your mouth. your mother’s blood opened your eyes, loosened your tongue, sharpened your teeth. this is your birth right. let them know you belong here. leave no room for mistaken assumptions. fill every room to bursting with your presence. never shrink. for him. for anyone. spread your abundance in every crevice. suffocate them with your light. let them look in every corner and find you. smear your blood on the temple gates; they will not pass over you. when they ask you why you do not hide, tell them that creatures of light have no kinship with the darkness. you inherited fire in your blood, if they touch you, they will burn.

 

Mofiyinfoluwa Okupe is a reluctant lawyer-in-training writing from Lagos, Nigeria. Her work explores the complexity of human emotions, with a deeply introspective self-lens. Her work is published in Guernica, The Kalahari Review, Agbowo and forthcoming in Black Warrior Review. She tweets @fiyinskosko and publishes monthly pieces on Medium.

the rink is closed, the sky is purple and full
of ice, we could say the sky is a bruise and
not talk about what might have happened
to bruise it, but it’s raining, and a flock
of dogs are pointing south through the park
where the train blurs our words together: howl,
for this is not a garden, for this is not
the garden and I drove us here for nothing

and perhaps we already left the walls and there
is no garden to return to, and maybe this fact
has nothing at all to do with us, young and trapped
as we are in the past with no place to go, beating
the ground with our feet for something to do

if today were a bear trap, I would be the spring
gauge lying tacit in the snow trying not to feel
too beat up about the neighbor’s pear tree
(they took it down with a wrecking ball)
(a wrecking ball, and I think about how I might
hurt the people I love) and how I love my eggs in a basket,
how I love the basket and its nest of perfectly timed
meetings, all my thoughts like ribbons
pinned into dinner party art, eating themselves

look, why would a tree be mine, it is not an
egg, it is not a basket, and the wrecking ball is
not a bear trap, something looking for a fight,
something transparent and lonely

look, the ice is melting anyway, the tree
has forgone all possession by becoming a
ghost, the ghost doesn’t want to talk to you
but that’s ok, you’ll both come around

and we’re not talking about any of this really,
who would, when there are so many places to
warm your feet, we’re listening to classical music
on the drive back from the rink, because
the dial’s stuck, because maybe
the world ends, because I know all the words

 

 

Norah Brady is a moon enthusiast, haunted house, and mountain poet. They were a runner-up for Youth Poet Laureate of Boston in 2020. Their poetry and short fiction can be found in Rookie Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review, COUNTERCLOCK and Kissing Dynamite.