Non-Fiction

Talking about the Kerala chai requires a geographical explanation of the land that is even titled as God’s own country, where the emerald green landscapes meet the bright blue embrace of the Arabian sea. But amongst all this charm, it’s the evenings at home that truly transport you to a dimension of artistry, emotions, and sweetness beyond compare.

The evenings are always different. It can be a warm, golden embrace that caresses the lush green landscape, or sometimes after the morning rains that quenched the thirst of the earth, the evenings bring a refreshing change to the sky once heavy with clouds, now wearing a duet between the royal purples and the most ethereal blues.

Our home is nestled amidst a lush sanctuary of trees, both big and small. The big trees with their sprawling canopy and the delicate flowering plants that hug the fence co-exist in the harmonious surrender to nature’s rhythm. The mango trees in our front yard are in full bloom, their branches heavy with fragrant blossoms, a perfume that lingers on the senses. It is as if the very essence of Kerala’s summer has been captured in those blossoms.

Snacks play an important role in the illustrations of evenings in Kerala. They are not just culinary creations; they are incorporations of generations of culinary understandings, wisdom, love and tradition.

Imagine biting into a crispy golden brown yet yellow sphere that crackles like autumn leaves underfoot. This is the magic of the lentil-stuffed sukhiyan. As you take the first indulgent bite, your taste buds are met with a sweet surprise – a luscious, fragrant filling of cooked green-gram in jaggery and grated coconut, infused with love and the flavors of cardamom. As the effort I put into explaining sukhiyan would explain my love for them, there are also other snacks like neyyappam, and vattayappam. And how not to mention wonders created with plantains,— and impossible not to mention a malayali’s relationship with tapioca, with love – kappa. The creativity and ability of Kerala home cooks to turn a humble root into boiled or crispy , savory chips and much more.

Sitting on the porch, as we sip our chai with some homemade snacks, the warmth of the cup in my hands mirrors the warmth in my heart.

Neighbors pass by with their cows, heading back home after a day of grazing. An everyday sight that adds rustic charm to our village, we exchange pleasantries, wits and stories, connecting in a way that only happens in tight-knit communities. The rhythmic clinking of cowbells accompanies our conversations, blending seamlessly with the philharmonic evenings.

My grandmother, a living storehouse of wisdom and love, joins me. Watching the world go by, her wrinkled hands, adorned with simple undecorated gold bangles that chime like music effortlessly find their way through my hair, massaging my scalp with a fondness that words cannot express. Her touch is a balm to my soul, an unspoken reassurance that I hold dear. A very simple gesture that spoke of a lifetime of care and affection. Our conversations about life, her advice, stories, her patiently listening to me, her beautiful smile filled with innocence and all that love, together makes all those moments very special.

As the stars begin to twinkle in the velvet sky, nature quiets down, the only sounds are the crickets. It’s a moment of serenity, a reminder of the beauty of simplicity. Whispering “good night” to the rustling leaves, I carry the evening’s magic with me to my dreams.

 

 

An aspiring healer with a passion for words and a stethoscope around her neck., Diya Maria is a Tennessee- based nursing student. A devoted reader and an art enthusiast, she tries to bring unique perspectives to the pages that resonate with the heartbeat of readers everywhere.

Dear Nani,

I’m writing to you from the mountain top in Sewanee. I’m participating in a creative writing conference here. I think I told you this, but you probably forgot. You always love reading my pieces, so I’m sending you a few stories with this letter. I’ve enlarged the font, so you can read them. I know you’re forgetting so much, so let me tell you what I remember.

I remember bowls of Annie’s mac-and-cheese with peas and purified water from a pitcher. I loved that mac-and-cheese, and I also loved the bowls. You always used the same one, ceramic white and laced with green tulips on the lip. One time, I asked my mom to make the mac-and-cheese, just the way you did, but it didn’t taste quite the same. When I asked why the water was purified, not the normal water I had at home, you said “Only the best for my favorite granddaughter!” I remember smiling.

Even when Nana spent hours in his room, lying on the gray comforter and staring at the chipped ceiling with glazed eyes, you were moving around, grabbing balled up socks and playing cards trapped under the legs of kitchen chairs, bony fingers hammering nails into the wall to hang up my school pictures and family photos, light bouncing off smiling faces.

I remember watching Young Sheldon in your living room in the evenings. Usually for the first twenty minutes of each episode, you would be bustling around in the small kitchen, pulling out chocolate-almond Dove bars and pouring us glasses of fizzing Coke, but I loved when you would join Rahul and me on the couch, the embroidered burgundy blanket draped across our laps. I’m pretty sure I looked at you more than the television screen, how a smile broke across your face whenever Missy and Sheldon teased each other, reminded you of me and Rahul, I think. You were so pretty when you laughed, your head thrown back, slightly crooked smile and dimpled cheeks, dark eyes creased. I don’t remember you ever scolding us, even when bits of chocolate broke off the bar and fell onto the carpet, lost in the plush crimson. I always fell asleep before the episode ended, my soft snore pushing into the quiet room.

This piece that I’m writing now came from an “I remember” prompt. When our teacher assigned it to us a few days ago, the other kids in my class rolled their eyes. It’s a generic prompt, an easy one. But I couldn’t wait to jump in, to close my eyes and picture your egg-shell white plaster walls, your large fluorescent light bulbs, the small manicured lawn out front. I do a lot with memory in my writing. It’s funny how memory works, how I can remember which photos are taped on your fridge but lying in bed some nights, staring up at the glowing stars taped on my ceiling, I forget the sound of your laugh. I have a bit of an obsession with memory in my writing, maybe because there’s so much of it. There’s always more to remember. And I’m watching you and learning how easy it is to forget.

I remember you would carry me to the bed, your fingers pressing gently into my ribs, until you no longer picked me up. I learned this one evening as I lay sprawled on the couch, my brother’s voice muted. I waited for you to scoop me up, for your cool hands on my waist, but instead you gently shook my leg and told me I was too heavy for you to lift. When I looked up at you, lines creased your cheeks, your dimples. I went to my red-and-white trundle bed that night with a lump in my throat and fell asleep to Rahul’s voice talking on the phone in the room next to mine, where he slept. I woke up in the morning to find clumps of dark brown hair in the bathroom trash can, thick locks among cherry Dum-Dum wrappers and Old Navy t-shirt receipts. That was how I found out. I ran, crying, to the kitchen, where I found you. You set down your whisk and pushed the bowl of egg yolks to the side to sit down with me, groaning as you lowered yourself onto the cool linoleum tiles. Our backs against the refrigerator, you pressed your hand firmly onto mine. Later that afternoon, I curled up in the sagging bean bag in the corner of the room, my face in the fuzz. When you survived the chemotherapy, and the doctors removed the lump in your breast, I thought you were immortal. Then aging kicked in, and I could see every day that you weren’t.

I remember Wii tennis, standing on the crimson carpet, flinging the remote around to hit the ball flying toward us on the screen. We almost hit each other so many times, a light breeze from a remote whizzing too close to skin. I got a bruise from when I slammed my arm mid-swing into the side of the brown sectional couch. You were never too good at playing. You’d have to sit down on the couch a few points into the game, out of breath, your shoulders pressed against the fabric back of the couch, and you’d lose some leverage on your swing. So, I played easy on you. Some points, I even pretended to not see the ball and swung a few seconds too late. You would always grin when you won, spinning around on the carpet, your arms flying around your waist in celebration.

At our meeting yesterday, my teacher told me to remove some of the details. They’re unnecessary, she said. I nodded, smiled politely. I didn’t know how to tell her that the kitchen isn’t just bright, but sunlight falls through the window in showers. The carpet isn’t red; it is maroon with flecks of gold and auburn if you kneel down and stare at it long enough. The speakers aren’t low quality; the voices crackle like static into the family room. I understand what my teacher is saying, but I am attached to these details I’ve grown up with. The carpet is not red.

Whenever I walked to the bathroom, I would stop at the portrait of your brother, clean-shaven face, dimpled cheeks, military uniform ironed and smooth. He died in a plane, you had told me once, after I’d asked a few times. When I probed further, you suggested a game of carrom and walked out of the room before I could respond. I have a lot of questions. What did you want to be or do in your life? Did you get it? Were you loved in the way you wanted to be?

 

 

Tara Prakash is an eleventh grader at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. Her work has been recognized in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards (where she won a National Gold Medal and a National Silver Medal), YoungArts, the New York Times, Blue Marble Review, Bow Seat’s Ocean Awareness Contest, The Daphne Review, and other literary journals and platforms. As a 2023 mentee in the Adroit Summer Mentorship Program, a participant in the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, and the founder of a nonprofit, Write to Right, which teaches writing to underserved communities, Tara loves writing poetry, flash fiction pieces, and creative nonfiction essays.

I Am Ana’s Anxiety.

More specifically, I am Ana’s Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Or, you could simply call me “Anxiety”, but it’s best if you don’t call on me at all, and pray that I never call on you.

Ana might not feel so fortunate to have me. There are many students who don’t wrestle with the weight of anxiety as she does. They call me “overthinking,” “stress,” and “isolation,” and frankly, I find these labels quite insulting. Afterall, I’m no lightweight when it comes to affecting Ana’s academic and social life. My primary residence is in her mind, but I have a way of infiltrating every corner of her world. My goal? To cast a shadow over Ana’s entire life.

So, where did I come from? Who knows? There are plenty of theories. Here’s my version:

Ana has always been a conscientious student, eager to excel academically and make her immigrant parents proud. But over time, this drive started to morph into something more threatening. It started as a persistent knot in her stomach before tests, the fear of making mistakes, and the crippling self-doubt that accompanies perfectionism. Relax, they said, but Ana ignored it.

My first appearance in Ana’s life was subtle, like the uneasiness that crept in when she was asked to speak in class, or the dread of group projects. “What if?” became my mantra, and I chanted it relentlessly. Anxiety, they called it, but Ana couldn’t easily escape my grip.

April 5, 2021. The first time I made my presence starkly clear. The trigger was seemingly mundane, a simple school presentation scheduled for that morning. But I tend to have a way with the mundane, if I must say so myself. On this day, I seized the opportunity to amplify her fears, manipulating the dread that had been building up inside her to its zenith. When Ana’s turn to speak arrived, her voice failed her entirely. Her palms grew clammy, and her breaths grew rapid and shallow, saturating her bloodstream with an excess of carbon dioxide. As the world around her became distant and surreal, her vision narrowed to a tunnel, her senses overwhelmed by the suffocating weight of, well, me. It was as if I had frozen her very being, rendering her unable to move, to breathe, or to articulate her thoughts.

I loved every moment of it.

From that day on, I decided to classify myself as a master of disguise. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m the reason Ana avoids social gatherings and isolates herself in her room, looking to books for comfort. I’m the reason she can’t manage more than one meal a day, the reason her tears are a nightly ritual, and the reason her parents remain oblivious to her silent suffering. I single-handedly have been responsible for countless missed opportunities and strained relationships, and I take pride in it.

 

I am a skillful manipulator. I convince Ana that her peers are constantly judging her, that her teachers are secretly disappointed in her, and that she’s not good enough, no matter how hard she tries. I am the architect of self-doubt, the creator of negative self-talk, and the instigator of sleepless nights.

Ana has tried to fight me off, seeking support from therapists and practicing relaxation techniques, but I’m persistent. Sure, she may have hampered my strength temporarily, but I take comfort in my resilience, for  every step she takes toward recovery, I counter with a wave of doubt.

It’s a constant battle, but I thrive on uncertainty and fear.

I wish Ana the worst. It’s in my essence.

 

 

Saanvi is a senior in high school who has recently discovered a passion for writing. She enjoys playing her electric guitar and taking long walks with her dog.

The shiny mahogany table glistens in the sunlight of New Year’s Day. Black-eyed peas and collard greens rest in the center of the table in glass bowls engraved with flowers. My mother, father, and three sisters share their goals for the New Year, glowing as the sunlight rushes through the blinds and illuminates the room. We relish the delicious food of last night’s preparation, excited to continue this tradition. We celebrate our Blackness.

To me, Blackness is strength and struggle. Blackness comes from everywhere— every continent and country— and it is impossible to characterize this community as a monolith. We are diverse, strong, and powerful. We all have different customs, cultures, and practices in every nation. For example, the Caribbean loves plantains, and West Africa has endless methods to prepare rice. Blackness will travel: on screen, in government, into every community, and all over the world.

In all cultures, food is a staple. There is always a gathering with food, leftovers, and the love and laughter that comes from breaking bread. For African-Americans, food has historical significance. Most of the food we eat can be traced to the backbone of this nation: the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Despite the pain and suffering of slavery, the enslaved people had the strength to keep going and celebrate the new year with hope for a better future. The tradition of eating this New Year’s meal is a reminder of that hope and resilience. It is a testament to the human spirit’s strength.

This meal— black-eyed peas and collard greens— comes from the American South. The black-eyed peas represent good luck. The collard greens, folded like money, symbolize wealth. The meal we eat at New Year’s comes from slavery. The beans and greens were the “poor” foods that slave masters did not want to eat and gave to slaves. As we enter the New Year, each part of the meal represents progress and continuation. This meal was never about eating; it was about the bravery and perseverance to continue under the most barbaric practice of history.

My memories of New Year’s Eve as a little girl are unmistakably clear. Then, I never understood the importance of this dinner’s preparation or the distinct methods my father used. I just hungrily watched in the kitchen. My father, however, spent hours on his feet, making sure everything was perfect for the holiday. The beans simmered in the pot, collard greens cooked over the stove, and his cornbread recipe was down to a science.

My father would always say his collard greens needed an extra level of careful precaution. It is critical to follow every step, not grow impatient and skip preparation. He would take the biggest knife in the house, make careful cuts around the core and remove it. Then, he washed them, paying close attention to removing all of the grit and roughness. He would rinse them once, twice, and strain them last. Then, he dried them, placed the leaves on a cutting board, and chopped them into bite-sized pieces. My father did this with ease. He is swift with his knife, he knows every edge, and how to be careful. He knew what he was looking for: the finest greens on earth.

This determination can be seen in every part of the meal. Unsoaked black-eyed peas take hours to cook. I can remember when my father was moving the black-eyed peas from the bag into a bowl, taking it to the freshly-cleaned sink, turning on the silver faucet, and waiting patiently as the pot filled with water. Then, it would sit on the countertop for six hours, soaking up everything it could.

My childhood followed the same process. My family would get me dressed, bring me to the bookstore, and let me soak up all the words. This is how I grew up: surrounded by knowledge and waiting to advance. I embraced this environment and pushed myself to learn more, striving to take advantage of every opportunity presented to me. I saw this as an example of resilience and strength— something that my ancestors had to do to survive. This was Blackness to me— learning to take advantage of my opportunities, and appreciate my ancestors. Through the books I read, I saw the power of knowledge and the importance of being a lifelong learner. I wanted to use my knowledge, to be a leader in my community, and be a role model for other Black people. Black-eyed peas were not just my culture, but my identity, and celebrated every year.

My entire family was like this too. They were quick on their feet, knew their way around every obstacle, and never gave up. They were focused on success. This drive was infectious. It spread to everyone they met, like the seasoning of the greens, only perfected by careful preparation. This drive they had was something they had nurtured and developed over the years. It was a result of their diligent work and dedication, and it was something they had passed down to me. They had a sixth sense that enabled them to navigate through life’s tricky waters.

Black-eyed peas and collard greens are part of Blackness. Blackness’ beauty, resilience, and power were given to me in this New Year’s tradition. This was not only a physical tradition, but an emotional one as well. I was able to carry on these values through the years, and I rely on them today. This New Year’s tradition continues to be a reminder of the strength of my ancestors and the power of Blackness. When I sit at the table, the hearty broth of collard greens dances on my tongue and raises my spirits. Most importantly, my place in history perfectly aligns with my ancestors. We are stars coming into place in the sky, shining beacons of hope overlapping throughout history.

 

 

Rainey Reese is a high school student from the vibrant city of Chicago, Illinois. With a fervent passion for the humanities, she has embarked on a personal journey of self-expression through her writing. Inspired by her New Year’s resolution to write more authentically, her essay titled “The New Year’s Tradition: Blackness, Resilience, and the Power of Food” explores the cultural significance of a cherished family tradition and aims to shed light on the meaning it holds for her and her loved ones.  Rainey’s work has been previously published a in Teen Ink Magazine, and you can explore more of her writing at 

https://medium.com/@raineyreese. 

In college, I took a class on video game criticism, which was not something that I knew existed before I enrolled in it. I spent the entire course listening to my classmates discuss abstract concepts in complex video games and pretending that I also did all the readings. When the professor assigned essays, he often used Tetris as an example because it was a simple game that everyone had heard of. No one actually wrote a paper about Tetris until the class final, when I decided that I was going to be the first. In place of a final exam, we were supposed to choose a video game and make an argument about it. The vagueness of the prompt made the opportunity too good to pass up. I downloaded the Tetris app onto my phone, breezed through a couple hundred levels, and called it “research.” Hey, I wanted to gain a better understanding of the game for my paper. The motive was education.

The Tetris Company claims that Tetris satiates the basic human drive to create order from chaos. Falling pieces—Tetriminos—are randomly generated one at a time, and their placement occurs shortly after their generation. A “Line Clear” occurs when a horizontal row is completely filled with blocks. The row disappears, and all pieces above the Line Clear shift down to fill the space. Bonus points are rewarded for clearing multiple lines at once. Clearing four lines at once, the maximum, is called “Tetris” and gives the same type of satisfaction as watching a scene in a movie where a character says the movie’s title. The Line Clear makes the game addictive and theoretically endless.

In the middle of my Tetris adventure, the game got personal. I went through a pretty bad breakup, and by “pretty bad,” I mean that it absolutely destroyed me. While the relationship lasted, it was the best thing to ever happen to me, but all of a sudden, it was over. I felt like the best part of my life was also over. Things are never going to be good again, my mental illness liked to tell me. I’ll never recover from this. No one is ever going to want me again. I’m worthless and unwanted and broken and unlovable. I don’t have the capacity to get to know another person like that. I don’t have it in me to keep trying. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t.

The truth is, I was in terrible shape long before the relationship ever started, and the relationship was a tool to cover up all my problems. The breakup wasn’t anyone’s fault, and neither was the aftermath; it just exposed all the shit that was already there. I fixated on the tragedy as a concrete explanation for my poor mental health.

Naturally, I began playing more Tetris. Life was majorly sucking, and the game was a good distraction. Playing didn’t cost too much brainpower, and succeeding made me feel better for a moment. The only thing I wanted to think about was colorful falling blocks because every other thought hurt too much. I threw myself a pity party in which the only activities were crying and playing Tetris through bleary eyes. For a few weeks, my life looked like this:

1. Position the blocks.
2. Place the blocks.
3. Complete the lines.
4. Clear the lines.
5. Cry
6. Sleep
7. Rinse
8. Repeat

I developed a bit of an addiction, and I honestly shouldn’t have been as shocked as I was to discover that I had Pavloved myself to associate Tetris with heartbreak. I didn’t forget that I had a paper to write, but I procrastinated so much that I had to whip up the whole thing in less than a day. I played more Tetris during my writing breaks. I submitted my essay with twenty minutes to spare, and I proceeded to delete the game off of my phone. I decided that I could never play Tetris again. But I still think about it. Clearly.

 

 

Lila Wu was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in Houston, Texas. She’s finishing her final year at Northwestern University, where she studies Radio/Television/Film and Creative Writing. Her go-to icebreaker fun fact rotates between her favorite ice cream flavor (chocolate chip cookie dough), having five younger siblings, and having attended clown school.

Walking towards the barricade was an uphill climb, and my legs wavered from months of disuse. In another life, it’d be exhilarating to break the law so openly. Instead, it was terrifying to be outside in the quiet with only the cry of cicadas to accompany me. They’d become more noticeable in the absence of cars and busy roads, city highways turning empty. But I wasn’t alone. There past the wire fencing, standing just beyond the short stretch of no-man’s land, was a boy who owed me a date.

In the overripe spring of May, in a locked-down Shanghai choked by heat and regulation, normality was a distant dream. For three months, we’d longed for simple things: walking in the sun, biking past streets once familiar and lively, seeing each other again. Over text, he’d say, We’ll go everywhere. When this is over, I’ll take you to the French Concession’s best cafes. His to-do list was never ending. I’d always reply, exasperated: Okay, okay. I never had the courage to ask, Are we getting our hopes up for nothing? Will I see you again?

 Now he was two meters away, halted in place by a second fence, our hands barely close enough to touch.

It was 9th grade P.E. class all over again; staring at each other from across the gym, then looking away. Blushing at a first crush, a first love. We’d imagined that the following months would go a little differently. The things that seemed so constant in our lives were now a luxury: dim restaurants and bustling city nights, hot steam rising from a bowl of ramen, the song “Stay With Me” by Miki Matsubara playing in the background. I’d imagined dates to be more than just the highway. Had I been given a choice, it’d be in the Lebanese restaurant on Anfu road, in the season of plum rain and wisteria. But seeing him again after months of isolation was enough. So I reached for him on the other side, no-man’s-land separating us from an embrace. He held onto my fingers gently across the distance, both of us pressed up against the metal railings. His hair had grown longer. He looked tired. Yet there was still a giddy smile on his face, as if he couldn’t believe what we’d done.

“I’m going to get into so much trouble,” he said.

I sighed, thinking about how my mom had wrinkled her nose at me earlier in the morning and said, “Really? You’re breaking the rules for a boy?”

“Me too.”

“But think about it this way,” he amended. “We can tell everyone else that we got out months earlier than they did. We snuck out! We’re badass!”

His exuberance made me blush. I didn’t say anything else to keep myself from stuttering.

But I leaned into his warm touch, comforting even in the humidity and 37º heat. “When this is all over, we’ll go everywhere,” he said.

I let myself believe him. His endless supply of hope. I imagined the barricades falling down, cars rushing back onto the highway. I imagined holding him close in a picturesque cafe downtown, the French Plane trees on Avenue Joffre blowing pollen everywhere.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

 

 

 

 

Jessica is a poet from Shanghai. She loves art, music, and Arabic poetry.