Non-Fiction

In elementary school, I loved the seafood section, the teeming clams with their tracheal tubes peeking from two shells, Mercy and I poked at them with the scooping nets when the butchers weren’t looking to see if they would react to our prodding. We could stare for hours at the Darwinism acting itself out in gurgling fish tanks as lobsters with red tags clamping their forceps scrambled over each other in close quarters, the undulating fish beating rhythm as a dozen eyes glazed back at us. Once, my mother had to drag me away from a box of frogs just as I reached a questioning hand into their ribbitting colony. She bribed our silence and complacency with rice crackers, pineapple cakes, pretzel sticks, Yan Yan strawberry dips, xiao mantou. Nothing spoke peace more than blissful chewing. Guzzling down Yakult and chrysanthemum tea was how we nursed our lips from the ravage of saltiness. If our mouths were occupied with an assortment of snacks, there would be no room for fighting throughout the rest of the day. We were too focused on making sure the Pocky sticks would ration out for the car ride home, sucking the sweet, pretending we were smoking a long one. Mercy would always be the most patient and giving when Cether and I would beg to share her snacks after we carelessly gobbled ours down. We never saw anyone at Trader Joe’s but here, we managed to always run into another auntie from church, BSF, or PTA who would also be shopping the deal they heard from their friend about the niu rou sale. It made sense, though, where else did all the magic in our kitchens spring from? Even though I can’t read the labels, I know by sight the sauces and spices that are hot pot necessities, the way my mom rests her head against a watermelon to hear its well-grown echo reply back to her. This knowledge, so primal, the taste buds craving the salt and sugar is a heritage I can always name.

 

 

Jireh Deng (she/they) was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. Her words appear with the Asian American Writer’s Workshop, podcast “VS”, Edsurge, Level Ground’s “Blooming in the Whirlwind”, and YouthSpeaks’s anthology “Between my Body and the Air”. She is a workshop participant in Get Lit Words Ignite 2020-21 Poetic Screenwriters Lab. Summer of 2021 she will be an editorial pages intern at the LA Times. Connect with her on Instagram and Twitter (@jireh_deng).

When I was seven years old, I was a bad kid. My parents would send me to bed at 8:30, but I’d sneak my mom’s iPad into my room and watch YouTube videos when I was supposed to be sleeping. While the television blared a soccer or basketball game downstairs in the living room, I’d lie under the covers, stealthily watching my favorite shows. As soon as I heard my parents’ footsteps, I’d shove the iPad under my pillow and close my eyes.

I loved different types of videos, like cooking videos and pranks. My favorite ones depicted dogs protecting their owners. There was this one Doberman that ran full speed, jumped, and knocked the “intruder” down. One day, I clicked on “recommended” and began watching a video of a girl and her friend walking down a street. Then a stranger approached. The girl, defending her friend, stuck her hands out in front of her. The man suddenly flew backwards through the air to the wall. She catapulted him with her bare hands! Everyone around them screamed. It was an energy force! I replayed the video several times, pausing to look for ropes or pulleys. I even enlarged the video, but I saw only the man flying through the air.

Afterward, I Googled, “What is the force that lets you move things with your mind?” The answer was “Telekinesis.” I’d watched Wonder Woman and seen her put her wrists together and push things away, but I didn’t know what it was called. Google said, “If you try your best, you can feel that energy and use your mind to move objects, but you must practice.”

The rest of the day, I watched YouTube tutorials on how to practice telekinesis. All day, I tried to move a piece of paper with my mind. From that day on, I practiced whenever I had time, focusing my eyes directly on the paper, not letting anything or anyone distract me. Scared of mosquitos at the time, I didn’t even let one bother me because I made a deal to myself: if I moved the piece of paper, I would allow myself to swat it. The paper stayed still. I even used my breath and blew the paper, pretending I exceeded my goal. Sometimes my breath didn’t even work. I never realized that a piece of paper could be so heavy!

At age seven, I was about three foot nine inches tall and weighed about 50 pounds. I had no muscle mass and couldn’t even open a bag of chips. Forget the pickle jars and bottles of Coke and Gatorade. In physical education class, I couldn’t catch a dodgeball. And I couldn’t run very far. My legs were like twigs. I was only good at swimming because I could float. Every time I walked into a classroom, no one would turn their heads. At lunch, I could start a conversation about a book I read over the weekend and talk about all the exciting characters and scenes, but my classmates would be talking to one another, playing board games, and looking at their phones, like they couldn’t hear me at all. They didn’t even lift their heads up to look at me. I was there, but people couldn’t see me. It was as if I weren’t an actual human being. It made me lose my confidence. I was like a neglected puppy; I desperately wanted attention and friends, but no one noticed or cared.

So, at school one day, I told my friends, “I have to tell you guys something. In private!” I made a dramatic face as if this announcement were terribly important. In the bathroom, my three friends gathered around me. (They were more like acquaintances who let me eat lunch at their table, and I often gave them gummy worms and chocolates.) In the brightly-lit tiled bathroom, they gaped at me, waiting.

I said, “Guess what? I have something I never told you about. I have one power. I can move things with my mind!”

As soon as they heard it, their faces lit up, eyes wide and stretched. I could tell that they were shocked, but they remained calm as if they didn’t believe me.

“That’s not possible, Vicky. If you were telling the truth, you would have shown us,” my best friend Christie said.

“Not right now. I can’t let anyone know, or else I’ll get caught. If I get caught, I’ll get in trouble. Besides, the principal will get mad if I tear up the bathroom.”

It worked. I captured their attention.

I wasn’t sure if they believed me, or if I simply intrigued them, but after the announcement in the bathroom, people started treating me differently, as if I were a mythical creature.

Kids I didn’t even know would stare at me across the playground, and even the teachers looked at me, no doubt wondering why students were surrounding me. Kids would argue over who got to hang out with me.

“Let go of her! She promised to hang out with me today!”

“Shut up, Jenna! She’s not even your friend! She’s MY friend.”

There were always two or more students holding my hands, pulling me along as if I were a doll they wanted to keep. They took me to climb the spider web with them. They dragged me to sit on the bench in the garden. They towed me along to ride the swings or play in the sandbox. Sometimes I was being pulled back and forth, left and right in opposite directions. They gave me chocolate, fruit candies, cookies, and sandwiches. They made me feel like a celebrity. Perhaps, I should have felt guilty. I was a con artist, but I was so focused on my new life that I didn’t even care.

From then on, I received many birthday invitations—some from kids I didn’t even know. When I attended these parties, I was always the only kid who got presents from the birthday kid, like nail polish, nail stickers, or even makeup for kids. Only special kids got these fantastic gifts. Everyone else just got smiley-face stickers and a piece of cake.

Second grade was the best year of my life.

Occasionally, kids pulled me aside and secretly asked, “Can you show me? Please? I really want to see you do it.” My powers were like a spark in their lives that kept them from losing hope.

“You have to come to my house to see it, but my mom has to agree first.” But every time they asked to come to my house, I would shrug and say, “No, it’s not a good time.”

Second grade passed by like time does when I’m watching Netflix. Maybe because I’d wished enough that I wouldn’t get caught, my wish came true. That summer, my parents transferred me to a new school. I didn’t see any of my friends or classmates from the old school again. So all the burden of my lies floated away.

There, among the taller twelve-year-olds, I also grew taller and stronger. I could do pushups and a handstand. I could catch two dodgeballs at the same time. I could open bags of potato chips. I made many more friends in my new school without any lies or fake talents. We’d hang out at the library studying in study rooms, sitting on couches, doing group projects. I realized that if I showed people my kindness and interest in them, they would treat me the same way.

One Sunday, I was at the mall with my dad. There, the marble floors, golden staircases, elevators, and Gucci brands made me feel poor. My dad stopped to investigate the map to find a shop we could afford. I was quietly standing beside him. In the sunlight through the ceiling, I could see a familiar face strolling through the mall.

Then it hit me. It all clicked. Second grade, when everyone was crowding around me all because of a tiny lie about my “powers.”

Shoot, I thought. I lifted my hoodie up, covering half my face, and begged my dad to take me home. Instead, we made our way to McDonald’s, where we ate burgers in the back corner.

As I ate, I thought about the lie.

My parents have always said, “You can’t do wrong and feel right.” Still, it had been nice to have an entire year of being the focus of attention, like being in a movie. A part of me missed that life and wanted to go back. But a part of me was proud that I no longer needed to lie to make friends.

As I ate my burger, the flavor wasn’t as full as I remembered it. When I finished, I stared intently at the wrapper. With all my mental focus, I willed it to move. I wasn’t quite willing to give up on the idea that I might have just a little bit of magic.

 

 

Vicky Sang is a ninth-grade student who lives in Shanghai. She loves to write about her fictional pets and scary dolls who lurk in the shadows. She is determined to someday write her own Dear Abby Column.

Everyone talks about skin hunger, but have you been thirsty for someone’s cadence? Their lilting hello, choked goodbye, whispered stay, raspy please, and muffled sorry? I have.

I tried recreating a friend’s goodnight, wrapped in an audible smile and punctuated by a yawn, one night before falling asleep. I tossed and turned for hours because my best imitation was the worst attempt — it did not sound like her. Often, I wake up in the middle of the night, filled with an unknown dread, unable to recall how she pronounces her t’s. I know her words flow like stifled giggles, birthing on her tongue even when she tries to hold back. She talks through films. Gasps loudly, chuckles softly.

The past year presented numerous opportunities for moments that I willingly surrendered: hugs that I didn’t offer, hands that I didn’t shake, cheeks that I didn’t caress, ribs that I didn’t poke, and sides that I didn’t tickle. I thought there would be a tomorrow. Lemony Snicket said even though death is inevitable, it manages to take us by surprise like walking up the stairs to your bedroom and expecting an extra step.

Even if I spend all of next year generously giving away parts of myself, it will be to new people. The old ones are gone, they reside in my phonebook now. My friends send me voice notes sometimes. I play them days later. Over and over. Until I can memorise them, until I can identify the patterns: S sighs twice before talking about her father; L groans at my tendency to ramble; D giggles when she runs out of things to say; K’s voice trails off for seven seconds and then the notes end. I counted.

Voice notes alter reality because these sounds are ours to keep, even years after they are sent. They are detached, disembodied noises; you can be a continent away, but I can still lull myself to sleep listening to you describe your day. I used to wonder: Where do words go once spoken? Nowhere, they can now stay.

I used to wonder why aaji would listen to her sputtering radio all day long, even when it croaked and most of its knobs fell off. I understand now — the only other voice in the house was her own.

 

Vibhavari loves self-indulgent essays, cats, Tumblr, and photography.

I stretch my fingers towards the slick wall of the pool. As soon as they touch, I flip, exhaling as I steadily release the pressure from my nose. Planting my feet hip-width apart, I push off the wall, into a streamline position. In a few seconds, I resurface to the jarring sound of whistles. Just as my arms break their tight position, my coach yells for me to speed up, her shrill voice piercing the air like bullets. For a few seconds, I am all arms and legs. Before I know it, the race is over. I remove my goggles and cap as I look at the scoreboard.

Place: 6/8
Time: 36.43

My worst time yet. A month ago, I would’ve been devastated, but now, I don’t even care. This is my last race.

As my feet carry me inside the room, I can feel sweat beading from my eyebrows, warming my already perspiring body. My limp tongue tastes shriveled in my mouth. I suck in a shallow breath, attempting to calm my electric nerves.

“I wan- want to quit,” I stutter, studiously avoiding my coach’s solid brown eyes. I open my mouth to elaborate, but she interrupts me.

“I’m not surprised,” she says quietly, meeting my eyes with an unwavering gaze. “You know, the only problem you’ll have is when it comes to college applications.”

I gawk at her, open-mouthed. I had just quit her team, which I had been on for two years, and the lack of emotion on her face was appalling. She seemed more passionate about college applications than me, her own swimmer.

The unfortunate truth I witness every day is that teenagers continue with sports they aren’t passionate about just for the golden emblem of admission from an Ivy-League u

I didn’t want to fall into that trap.

Swimming had been an integral part of my life, ever since I was eight, when I made the team. It was paradise for years, like most people imagine. It required minimal effort, and my strokes were aimless and languid. That is, until I switched to a more prestigious team of hand-picked swimmers. My new coach, a nationally ranked swimmer, made my first few days on the team a nightmare. Her yelling was incessant and her coaching wasn’t any less harsh. In the water, my body would barely inch forward no matter how strong my kicks were. My arms were weak and flabby. I would be lapped by nine-year-olds while my body felt inert in the icy water.

A couple of weeks later, I had settled into a routine, although my improvement was minimal. I was willing to work hard and push myself to be better. I swam until my tendons ached and my arms vibrated after countless chin-ups. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I spent three mind-numbing hours at practice. Two for swimming and one for dryland. I survived the rest of that year through sheer grit. It wasn’t easy, but I kept swimming for two hours a day while balancing my homework and other extracurricular activities.

As I came to know soon, that routine wasn’t sustainable. As seventh period approached in school, I could feel my mood become weary and my footsteps become slower. My usual ebullient mood was replaced by a ticking bomb of anxiety.  When I walked onto the pool deck, I was consumed by an unexplainable sadness. I could feel myself glancing at the clock every couple minutes, as if I was desperate to leave.

I had never really considered leaving the sport because I thought people would see me as a loser. Quitting was truly unthinkable for me, until Covid-19. The pool was shut down, and all I had was dryland on Zoom, three times a week. Over that period of time, I realized that I’d been defining myself as a swimmer. If I quit, I would be losing my identity. At age 13, most people are building their personal brand, not reforming it.

I kept procrastinating on saying the words “I quit swimming” because it just was too difficult. Swimming was quite literally my life, the one thing that was constant as my beliefs, personality and friends changed. I had gotten so caught up in being perfect and steady that I forgot that there was a way out of swimming. My mind had become so one-tracked that I couldn’t imagine life without swimming.

When I finally detached my self-worth from swimming, against the seemingly prudent voices in my head, I told my coach I was quitting.It was the greatest relief I have felt in my entire life. The weights had been lifted off my shoulders, making me feel taller and more relaxed.

I’ve learned that quitting isn’t giving up. It’s choosing to focus your attention on something more important.

 

 

Shreya Prabhu is in the eighth grade at Eastern Middle School. Her work has appeared in The Hartford Courant, Teen Ink, GEN-ZINE and YR Media.

The name Nasrullah is Arabic for “victory of God.” It has been in my family since the 18th century, forged in the bustling bazaars of Damascus and the ancient valleys of the Levante. It was always worn with pride, like an emerald ring or a diamond necklace. The name is my family’s connection with their Islamic faith and how we are servants of God. However, a harsh climate in an alien land would soon put this beautiful name into harm and threaten its legacy.

My grandfather was Moen Nasrullah, an established lawyer and the most intelligent man I knew. He and his young family fled Damascus, when a coup d’etat broke out, to the haven of Nashville, Tennessee. There, he had my father, Ahmed Nasrullah. My dad would always question my grandfather about why he has such an ethnic name and not something generically American like “Robert” or “John.” My grandfather would explain that in his haste to leave Syria, he could not bring any tangible objects; their name was their only bridge to Islam and Arab culture. As my father got older, he met my mother in St. Louis and they soon got married. During this time tragedy struck the nation: 9/11. These horrific events shocked the nation and threw the United States into a whirlwind. The climate towards Muslim and especially Arab Muslims began to shift and Islamophobia became a common occurrence. My father got many comments like “traitor” or “terrorist” and these began to frighten my parents. Two years later, they had their first child. They gave me an Arab name, Saif, but out of fear of malice towards Muslims, changed my last name to Nasr. Our family name that survived wars, turmoil, colonial occupations, and civil war came to an end on the fateful day of March 11th, 2003.

I grew up oblivious to this change but somewhere deep inside me there was a void. I was too young to understand why I had this void or what I needed to fix it; I could only identify its existence. I obviously recognized that my last name was different, but paid no attention as I thought it was a mere simplification. I never believed that this shortening of five letters would ever compromise my connection to my culture. Or so I thought …

Last summer, my family traveled to my grandmother’s house in Maryland to see how she was holding up amidst the pandemic. After greeting her and hearing the usual “look how tall you have gotten” despite seeing her a month ago, I headed up to the attic. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a cardboard box with the Arabic word aa’lia, meaning family. The box didn’t surprise me as much as my ability to read my grandmother’s atrocious Arabic handwriting! I pulled out a large framed manuscript and dusted off the thick cluster of cobwebs. It turned out to be a family tree that dated back to the 1800s. It had a beautiful gold leaf border, dark oak branches, and jet-black text. At the very top was our family’s name, Nasrullah, in a vibrant light blue ink. Seeing the Arabic calligraphy filled me with radiant pride, until I glanced at the bottom left-hand corner. On a tapped piece of paper lay a skinny branch reading Saif Nasr, without my family’s surname. The characters ر ص ن) n, a, s, r) looked deserted, as if they didn’t belong. This was the first moment I felt disconnected with my family and utterly embarrassed. I felt disconnected with their triumphs. I felt disconnected with their struggles. I just felt disconnected.

During the remainder of lockdown, I struggled with this insecurity. There were days spent in my room staring out my window thinking about my name. I understood that it was changed to protect me from violent Islamophobia, but times are slowly changing. I was not going to let a 19-year-old fear dictate who I am today or who I will be tomorrow. I longed to be part of my family’s legacy, so I made a promise to myself that once I turned 18, I would change my name to Nasrullah. I promise to carry on the Nasrullah name and wear it with pride to ensure that my ancestor’s sacrifices were not in vain. I hope to finally take my rightful place on our ancient family tree and read the word Nasrullah in a beautiful Arabic script after my first name.

Someday in the distant future, I want to return to the rocky Syrian shores, look upon its rolling hills, and claim victory over Islamophobia by taking my rightful place in the Nasrullah family.

 

 

Saif Nasr is a high school senior living in McLean, VA. He has a passion for personal writing, especially about his Arab heritage. He runs the Arab Student Alliance at his school and loves hearing about each member’s relationship with their culture. In his free time, he likes to read, fish, and stargaze.

 

I’m a poet. I write my body and soul with the desperation of a prostitute. But when I sit down to describe my illness… I am on the edge of nobody’s empire. My words fail me. It’s like staring into the void. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, ME, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, is a complex, multi-system chronic disease that feels like having a persistent flu and leaves you utterly exhausted, both mentally and physically.

I found Belle and Sebastian last spring, right as my symptoms started to worsen. Bedridden with nothing to do except listen to music, I fell in love with the band’s lyrics. Their songs were delicate, gritty explorations of life’s glorious triviality. In a poetic tribute, depressed by the pandemic and my failing body, I wrote: “My dearest Belle and Sebastian, you break yourselves into pieces so casually/ such casual living is beyond me.”

It wasn’t until later that I learned that Stuart Murdoch, the band’s lead singer and songwriter, also suffered from ME. Songwriting was Murdoch’s way of accessing a world he wasn’t able to fully participate in. In an interview, Murdoch talks about how though ME had permeated many of his songs, “Nobody’s Empire” was the first time he attempted to write directly about his illness. I understand his hesitation; the void our illness creates is terrifying. Writing “Nobody’s Empire” was a truly courageous act. The song is helpless and helpful, hopeless and hopeful. Being ill is a lonely experience. It’s cathartic to empathize, but it’s especially exhilarating when that empathy comes in the form of an escape. Through “Nobody’s Empire”, Murdoch makes our disease beautiful. He embraces the emptiness. He allows it to be filled by fluttering, tender moments of love and pain.

I told myself I would not let my disability define me. But here I am, writing an essay about my musical medicine. The truth is our limitations do define us. They sculpt us. They form our contours. They help us choose our heroes. In Nobody’s Empire, Murdoch’s hero is a friend who is sick alongside him. He addresses her with poignant, defiant acceptance and love: “Lying on my side you were half awake/ And your face was tired and crumpled/ If I had a camera, I’d snap you now/ Cause there’s beauty in every stumble.” Sometimes I think I may have found a hero in Murdoch. I will never be superwoman, but I can tell stories, create metaphors, take a camera and capture humanity as we stumble towards a better future.

 

*Lyrics in Italics and quotations are from Belle and Sebastian’s song Nobody’s Empire, Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance

(this poem has also found a home on Write the World)

 

Zinnia Hansen is a seventeen-year-old essayist and poet from Port Townsend, Washington. She has a tendency towards abstraction, but a deep love of the idiosyncrasies that make us human. Her work has been published in several magazines. She was a participant in the 2020-2021 Hugo Young Writers Cohort. And she is the 2021-2022 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate.