Maya Walker

my name is maya walker & i am a prospective student
at your institution. i am interested in english literature.
spanish language. classics. studying abroad. i am interested

in a small school in a big city; a big school in a small
city; a campus within a city, like nyu but not nyu. nothing rural,
nothing suburban. i can’t stand suburbia: house after

house after house in a row. one of them is my house, my
childhood house now. the house i’m moving out
of to come to your institution. no, university, not institution.

institution sounds like an asylum & i’ve had enough
of those. what’s that? no, i’m not insane. just deranged enough
to apply to your school out of all the schools, your school

with little mental health resources & no family to help me through
my panic attacks. oh, i’m sorry. not panic attacks. let’s call
them anxiety episodes, nervous fits, the jitters. anything to make

them sound less scary. anything to make me not a hazard to
your university. i promise i’m a good student. i promise i’ll try to be
a better student. i promise i’ll try to be a better student than

the ones who’ve dropped out after their first semesters, the ones
who realized they weren’t fit for life away from home. i promise
i’m fit for life away from home. why else would i be applying here?

it’s so far. it’s so close. it’s so urban; i can get lost in the
buildings & people & say at least i’m not alone when i’m tired of not
being heard, of being not good enough for you. dear university,

i promise i’m good enough for you. i promise i won’t give up on you like
i gave up on high school sophomore year. that was a fluke. i’ll never
give up on anything again. dear university, i’m applying because you’re

my safety school. because you’re my reach school. because i have
no other choice. i’m applying because i’m tired of my home. i’m applying
because nothing on campus reminds me of home, & i like it that

way. I’m applying because what choice do i have, because i have to go
somewhere. i’m applying because i need a fresh start, because
i always have one on your campus. thank you for your consideration.

 

Maya Walker is an avid reader, tea drinker, and lover of words. She is the founder and editor in chief of Fulminare Review as well as an executive editor at Spiritus Mundi Review and a staff writer for Immortal Journal. You can read her work at The Augment Review, Ice Lolly Review, Fifth Wheel Press, and others, or find her at the abyss of ink known colloquially as the Instagram page @maya_whispers_words.

room like the inside of a lightbulb gone
dark. a daughter
already not a daughter
places her hand on a chest
forever burning, quickly now.
those curtains taming light. bed beneath
a quilt beneath
a father, draped in navy wool.
summer so hot it cracked in your mouth.

room in strict geometry:
heaving with every breath, easy patterns
slipping to ribbed floorboard–
hall constricting like
a throat. she lowers herself to a goodbye
below breath. i begin forgetting
even as light leaves those corners.

later, he wakes again and again
calling out to blurred edges, asking
if we have left, if he is staying

 

Elena Ferrari is a junior at Milton Academy and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her poetry has been recognized regionally and nationally by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and is published or forthcoming in Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, Magus Mabus, and The WEIGHT Journal. When not reading or writing copious amounts of poetry, she can be found annoying her cat and drawing force diagrams.

i don’t tell them / of the sawdust mouth / the sandpaper / curled like a / prawn or the clogged-up
/ throat / the gravel-flooded eyes / or how the / blue blood / rushes to my head / twitches and /
rolls / down my wrists / like violet tears / like / desert-dust / in / stead i / tell / them / of being /
dragged / nine feet under / water breath / less kicking and / screaming / with no room / to rise up
/ for air / i tell them / of the black seaweed that / catches / round the curve / of my throat /
pulverises my wind / pipe into snipped-out hearts / i tell them of the cockles / and oysters that /
catch on / to my finger /

tips; hooks tethering / me / to the ground / the tinfoil half-moons / i spill / from the cusp of / my lip
the / oily silver bubbles that / foam around / me like / pearls smooth / and round / the stars / that
shiver / over the face / of the water / clear and blue / and still and / silent / as death / i tell them /
to imagine a / windowless / room / and the / walls / closing / in on / you / like / fangs / i tell them /
it’s your soul / erupting / like a lotus / imploding / over the face / of water / before scattering / like
an ash / or / any / dead thing /

and / i tell them / it’s / not / poetry / but it / could be /

it could be

 

Nabiha Ali is sixteen years old, and lives in Lancashire. When she’s not writing poetry, she enjoys playing with her pet budgies and writing stories she knows she’ll never finish. This year, she has been shortlisted for the national BBC Young Writers Award with Cambridge University. She is also a recent winner in the 15-17 years of age category for the Solstice Prize for Young Writers.

Seventeen is like this:
I am sarcastic and stubborn
Sweet and sensitive
I feel helpless and also full of hope
I’ve never been braver, but only because I’ve never been more scared

Seventeen is like this:
I am eager for the future to arrive, and yet I wish it would slow in its approach
My hometown is a prison
And my hometown is who I am
Part of me will always be here, and part of here will always be in me

Seventeen is like this:
A middle finger is a salute
Fast food is its own love language
We are wild and stupid and brilliant
There’s a dialect you speak at seventeen that you will never be fluent in again

Seventeen is like this:
I scream into the void at the top of my lungs
I haven’t found my voice yet
I am nearly an adult and I’m still a little kid
I am a mess of contradictions and I am a blank canvas

Seventeen is like this:
It’s beautiful in spite of and because it’s ugly
Seventeen is freedom
Seventeen is purgatory
Seventeen is the cusp of something great

Seventeen is the most important year of my life, at least until I get to the next one

 

Katelyn Caulder, 17, is a queer poet from Lakeville, MN who enjoys YA novels, iced coffee, and dogs. In her free time, Kate competes on her school’s speech team, teaches karate, and plays guitar.

when my father was younger, he
aimed his frustration at birds.
when a farm throws itself out wide,
the second between shot and thud
eats itself alive and is lost in the flush of cedar.

when my father was younger, he
had a grandmother whose rules bled right into him.
don’t walk on the grass if it isn’t yours, don’t let a woman walk nearest the street, don’t
shoot the northern cardinal.

my mother still thinks you became one
that when the last threads of your scent escaped out the window
they tied back together and flew
over a farm, untouchable.
your love remained a quiet, breathing creature
one that twists and dances and
lives
even as your absence serves proof of a voyage completed.

 

mikey harper is a seventeen-year-old transgender artist and aspiring journalist from houston, texas. he is a creative writing student with a focus in poetry and creative non-fiction, and is the founder/managing editor of BLUNT FORCE JOURNAL. he has been previously published in the augment review, paper crane journal, and twice through cathartic lit. when he isn’t reading or going to concerts, he’s learning a new song on bass or adding more CDs to his collection.

there, tucked away beneath
the eaves of the porch:
my grandmother. loud
splatters of rain on zinc

plates, my thick black
hair falling to earth beside
pebbles and puddles. she
was still, so still while i

winced my ear away
in fear of the blade’s
incisiveness. i saw her
in the mirror; her hands

on my shoulder. still.
some years later, long
past trimmed fringes
and slanted sideburns,

my mother and i talk
about her after her passing.
we are still, still. how
the cracks in the ground

hold not my hair, nor hers
but indelible markers
of unfaltering steps, with
half-torn shoes and

ribbed garments; she
is there, has always been,
snipping away stray strands,
feeding with these still hands.

remembering that, i say,
see how you will not
hear me bemoan storms,
gnash my teeth in rain,
trace the steps of years lost:

i like her am standing, still.

 

Brian Lee is an aspiring writer and poet from Singapore, whose works are published or forthcoming in Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine and Corvus Review. Having grown up in three different countries, he writes in an attempt to recreate and remember.