Fiona Lu

mother sculpts me out of yellow river clay, kneads my ribcage
into shape, leaves me in the afternoon sun to dry.
by evening, there is already a lump in her mouth. she reaches in,
finds my name tucked beneath her tongue. breathes life into my still
clay hands.

when I am five, mother and I are close: umbilical cord
intact in our dreams. hands like silk, voice
like a bright, clear window of light. mother tells me
there was once a man who cracked the universe into halves
like a chicken egg, willed himself into the world until his breath
became wind, his bones diamonds, and his left eye the egg-yolk sun.

I am nine, and the sky is broken. curtains of rain falling
from holes in the sky. mother is perched on the windowsill,
five-colored stones and needle and thread in her hands.
I try to say thank you but the words fall out of my mouth—
native language severed at the spine. to me,
forgetting is an unclean word. forgetting is the knife with which i cut
out my own heart from my chest and leave it to rot. mother sees this,
takes my silence as regret before leaping
towards the fractured sky.

at fifteen, I have already chosen a new name for myself— a shiny new
american thing. its edges are too brittle, syllables too sharp
for mother to swallow
without drawing blood. mother,
stop pretending that you don’t shiver every night before
you fall asleep. stop pretending that I don’t cover my skin so the sun
won’t stain me a deeper shade of yellow. stop pretending
that I can still recall the imprint of your palms
on my clay skin. I look outside
and the sky ruptures into turtle shells and ashes.
holes everywhere. I call for mother
but she is nowhere to be found.

 

 

Fiona Lu is a poet and a student at Hillsdale High School. She is passionate about storytelling, no matter what form it may take. In her free time, she likes to draw, read YA novels, and take walks with her family.

 

2:37 AM is an ungodly hour / it is glass breaking, thumbs without grip / it is an emptiness, it is souls leeched hollow / it is hair stuck on my shower wall, tangles caught on combs, brushes, / it is my stomach replaced by a paperweight.

it is unequivocally human, perhaps most human of all / syncopated breathing in out in out in out / it is claustrophobic, time stops moving / i hold down the hands of the clock with my excess paperweight

2:37 AM will be written on my epitaph / my obituary will be written at 2:37 AM with a paperweight on the edges of the paper-light / sheets of white, light light feather light / 2:37 AM is when i pull out the measuring tape and / paperweight

2:37 AM / wrangled bodies scattered in pencil-thin margins / i am locked in my medicine cabinet, final. quiet / the hurricane rages outside, raucous, / my cocoon is untouchable by the storm on the outside / inside, maybe not / but no fear, my forms held down by a paperweight. they will not fly away. / will i?

i do not have a paperweight to hold me down.

my skin is waxy / my hair does not stay in my scalp / my fingers do not stop vibrating? why / i am cold. it is too cold / someone turn up the heat / my pencil hurts my fingers i squeeze it too tightly / i am still cold / papery eyelids, mache hidden in breastbone / held down by a paperweight

i watch / as i atrophy / at 2:37 AM / it goes on / forever / or maybe just a moment. because then / at 2:38 / i hide it away,

my paperweight / is just another skeleton in my closet.

 

 

Halle Ewing (they/she) is a fourteen-year-old from Orange County with a love for the written word. She finds herself reflected in the lines she writes, and when they aren’t frantically trying to remember that one word on the tip of their tongue, they’re drinking way too much coffee, playing water polo, or begging her friends to take pictures of them. Their work can be found in Paper Cranes Literary Journal, Crossed Paths, and Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, and the Weight Journal. Her Instagram handle is @halleewingg.

although we left,
I still remember how to walk on scattered bullets,
fake sleep with a pillow covering my ear
to keep the deafening sounds of bombs away
the heart-wrenching screams of people dying outside the wall
their last words falling like leaves on a withering tree
—to become an enemy to those you once shared with
plates of pepper soup & toasted drinks to more life,
the irony unveiled, makes me pray for amnesia sometimes/
how do i blot out this unwanted phantasm in exchange of
flowery scents, seed pots & kunu yet my placenta lies there
& though we are miles away across hills & seas
& time, they say heals, it is 15 years now
but I still jump out of sleep, hallucinating!

 

 

 

Rahma O. Jimoh is a writer and nature photog. She is a Hues Foundation scholar and a Pushcart Prize Nominee. A lover of sunsets and monuments. She has been published or forthcoming in Kalahari Review, Lucent Dreaming, Olongo Africa & others. She is the Poetry Editor for The Quills and a Poetry Reader at Chestnut Review.

As I reached into

My pencil case

To make a note in

The margins of a book                         [ which I never used to do]

I felt a rotten plank

Drop out of my heart

And a new board

Slot right in.

Your name was

Written on it

In blue ink.

 

Ryan J. Skarphol is a queer poet from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is currently attending the University of Minnesota, Duluth for English and Journalism.

today, my lips wear gospel like a balm,
like a sky carrying a colonnade of rainbow —
a panacea glosses over it like
dewdrops on a tulip’s field.
today, I glide in the heart of an infant,
I clasp joy in my palms like an egg —
joy is a fragile thing.

today, let joy be joy
and not any word that lacerates
with a heavy consonant.
today, I untick the chaos
of mementos, spruce the
wind into a cavalcade of goodwill.

today, I sap peace from God’s nostrils —
a compensation for the mornings
that strapped from clacks of guns.
today, I peel my skin at the tomb
of grief like a wounded snake
rambling for healing,

I prune my throat into
the halcyon of a birdsong,
forage my belly for darkness
that hovers at the genesis
of my brokenness.

today, my lips wear a gospel,
let peace be peace and not
my body shrieking in homophone.

 

Samuel Victor Ajani is a black writer and poet. He was a Semi-finalist at the 2020 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the 2020 Kreative Diadem Annual Writing contest. He reads for Bluebird Review magazine. He is one of the contributors to SPRINNG Afro-eros anthology. His recent works are/forthcoming on Snapdragon journal, RIGOROUS, East French Press, Eremite, The Shallow Tales Review PRAXIS mag, The Hellebore lit mag, Augment Review, and elsewhere. Say hi to him on Twitter @solvic16.

I wish I could live like lava,
to go where I please,
Unstoppable in what I choose,
Burn hot when I’m young,
And become smooth,
Beautiful,
like obsidian
when I’m done.

 

Daniel is a seventeen year old from Korea. He writes for fun, and while he has no awards that he lays claim to, he enjoys life very much.