Poetry

I long to walk on the shores
of your beaches,
touch the cool Atlantic—
A horizon of nothing.

I want to taste your beer,
smoke cigarettes with the middle-aged men
in the open-air bars that are in-service
from late afternoon to the early hours of the morning.

To step into the terra-cotta clay mud
of your dirt roads in the countryside
and glide on the smooth pavement of Yaoundé.
To be stared at as I shop in the markets,
be called “foreigner”, “stranger”, “American”
in the native tongues.

To speak broken French with my Francophone family,
nearly perfected English with my Anglophone side,
and eavesdrop on the surrounding conversations
spoken in Pidgin.
I know more than they think, ha-ha.

To savor your smoked barracuda,
long for it to be in every dish…
To glare at the statues commemorating imperialists…
To devour the fried plantains cooked as a midday snack.
To be stung by your mosquitoes
as I hike in your national parks.

To be embraced by my fellow countrymen and women
as if I had been born and bred there.

 

Hyla Etame (she/her) is a writer from Southern California of Cameroonian heritage. Hyla is a first-year student at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, studying English Literature and Creative Writing. Her writing often meditates on nature, everyday experiences, and her identity. During her high school career, she was a member of WriteGirl and her poem “The Nonexistent Divide Between Land and Air” was published in their 2019 anthology. Her poem “Heaven on Earth,” which she describes as “a love letter to the desert,” was published in the Inlandia Institute’s Spring 2021 Volume XII Teen Issue. Currently, she’s writing the second draft of her novel about a teenager living in an egalitarian pure communist society and hopes to publish it as soon as it’s complete.

Aug 24
Oh lovely death! How dark, you make the night grow!
No longer do the hands punish. No longer do the eyes sneer.
Oh lovely death! How benevolent you are!
The most equal occurrence, the most known experience, the most revered event!
Wisping away the lives of those who were wronged, to a new life.
And carrying the poor souls of those who wronged, to a new chance at life!

Aug 27
Oh lovly death! How misteriyous you are!
How butiful your face must be to even transfiqs the eyes of the suffering to your demenor!
How gentle you must be, to pour out the breth, forever sinking your frends chest!
Huw fast you take away the pain of marters!
Oh lovely death, do unto me as you have done for genaretions!
Oh binivolent death, cary to the land you are so fond of!
O mysterious death, transfiqx my eyes unto your face and release me the pain from this world!

Sep 3
Hav I not suffered enuf?
m I not to the degri of those who died and met ur pleasince?
Y du yu onli come to thos who dislike you, why must yo keeep me withut yu?!
Oh cowy death, show urslf!
An ugli expreshun, of only urs culd capture the atttenttshun of yur “friends”!
How dgustig ou mst be!
No wonder you don’t resid in the hevans! Not evan th demans of hell had dasired yur residunce!
Ha! How sud must it be to be to be rijected bi the devil himself!

Oct 31
Oh gurdy death, youn’t must have pruuf!
I visit graves manyy multiplicashun a day.
I only eat the meat, meat, meat from the cows.
Nd the gerlic from the wo men.
oH diSgrumblEd deth, y Du you forsik me soo??
My TEARS havE terned into YoU, mY Hert is only for u. My supherIng is onli for YOU!!!
ARnt MI WITS NIT ENUF? IS MI SUL NOT ENUF? PLES ANSWER!!!!
Stoopid doctor an his stopid writititings
Oh Deph, jus clam mi sul lik mi bveld magorlds.
Nu lengr wil I dezev u, I prumiz.
Hav mercy o wretched Deth!
reLIve r wrtchd mecy dath du unto me.
Oh Deth!

 

Mustafa Dost is a fifteen-year-old developing writer from SoCal, whose biggest fear is fully finishing any writing idea. He likes gardening, collecting classic books, and pretending to have a ton of work to do. The main goal in any of his writing is to evoke a powerful emotion, and to this day he works toward that goal.

i swim through the dark, alone.
the street lamps blossom to sip the
cool, blue glow. memories forget they
are memories because the stars
blink just like they did that evening in april.
the moon dangles its cold lure. lips crash
into lips. hands fold into hands.

once the sun cracks through this ink-black
shell, then i’ll know. however, until
the dusk dies, i don’t have to. until the
birds wake, i don’t need to. if this terrible
night continues to haunt me, the whispers
of you and i can still turn my head.

tonight, there are constellations left
unnamed, so it doesn’t need to be real.
i’m not asking you to love me; i’m begging
you to make a fool of me. take my body
and crush it with yours. what are fingers
for, if not necks and triggers? you
already told me that this will shatter
everything, so now all that’s left is for
you to show me. come, let’s collide. we
can be shooting stars—dying and beautiful.
there will be no one to witness us, no
wishes to grant. what are nights for,
if not desire and disappointment?

 

Kevin Song is a freshman at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. He only recently started writing poetry and it has become a powerful outlet. In his free time, he enjoys spending time outdoors, eating Asian food, and reading manga.

On my darkest inner nights,
I soothe a seething fear.
One that whispers of my life,
And the many failures near.

It tells me of potential,
Resting unfulfilled.
It warns of idle moments,
For which I’ll later pay the bill.

It tells me I’m a nothing,
Erased before I’m gone.
It speaks of opportunities,
Fading with a yawn.

It knows of all my secret dreams,
Ones tucked inside my heart.
It tells me they will wilt away,
Lest my apathy departs.

It makes me think of giving up,
Tests the mettle of my want.
Conjures visions of success,
To be shattered as a taunt.

It creates a constant ticking,
For the moments as they fly.
I can’t forget the speed at which
My life is rushing by.

It asks me what’s the point,
When it’s likely that I’ll lose?
It scoffs that working everyday,
Is a silly thing to choose.

And of course I’m frightened,
That stride on as I may,
I might remain forever,
One more lost in the fray.

But either I can use this fear,
Or will it end up using me.
Will I become paralyzed,
And bound up in ennui?

Or will fear strike a fire,
Burning somewhere in my soul,
To push me ever onwards,
And to hold me to my goals?

It can keep my vision clear,
Cleaning clutter from my mind.
And aid me in my daily search,
For the focus I must find.

The fear, at times, can feel,
Like a weight upon my back.
But in truth, it is a compass,
That is holding me on track.

 

Quinn Murphy is an eighteen-year-old writer based in British Columbia, Canada. She’s been practicing creative writing since she was twelve, but she’s been telling stories for much, much longer. When she was fourteen, she started working as a contributor for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) Kids News, creating news articles for kids across Canada. Her poem The Writer, and her short story, The Little Thief, were recently published in the Spiritus Mundi Review. She has a passion for creative writing, particularly short stories and poetry, and she is working on her debut novel, which she hopes will touch readers of all ages.

on fridays you come home with the evening paper,
shaking sunset and dry leaves off your boots at the back door,
greeting me with a bag of murukku and a kiss to the cheek.
the kitchen’s glow is quiet and yellow, silhouetted
by shadows of a sloppy slow dance,
an orange tabby cat asleep on the sill,
an old dogwood on the other side of the glass.
i catch the chai pot before it boils over.
you pour us a cup each—
extra sugar for me, just a pinch for you—
while i tune the panasonic to our station of choice.
we join a gingery dusk at the table by the window,
spilling the day’s stories onto warm chestnut
and the night’s secrets into
warmer hands.

 

Isabel Isaac is a senior studying at Palm Beach Atlantic University, where she majors in Popular Music and minors in Creative Writing. She is originally from Northeast Philadelphia and has been living in West Palm Beach since 2015. Several of her works have been published in Living Waters Review. Most of her writing centers around her Indian-American heritage. Outside of music and writing, her interests lie in photography/cinematography, fashion, and cats

So does this year turn me sepia?
Wrinkled by the amount of times I’ve screamed,
cheeks grayish from saltwater drizzle.
Now they say my hands are wise enough to be trusted
on a steering wheel,
grown enough to fit a rifle between my fingers
and cuddle it at night like a teddy bear.
I’m asked to sign ballots
with yawning words that make me feel
like I’m back in the uterus.
A brainless cereal of cells
with more rights than their mother.
So I’m forced to hold life in my body
against my will, not allowed
to free myself from pain –
yet I am allowed to take a life, or many
with the rapid turn of my elbow in a car
or the press of my finger on a trigger.

Tell me why we are celebrating.
Tell me why there are candles
staining my pupils when I close my eyes,
and sweetness dissolving on my tongue.
The old lady in the restaurant
calls me a darling young girl,
yet the drunk man on the sidewalk offers me beer.
I can taste it all on my palms.
The softness of my baby hands clutching things
in my peripheral view,
constant newness freckling my plump cheeks.
And I taste the feeling of a red plastic cup,
sticky and crinkling in my hand
as I stumble through a world of vomited traffic lights.

I’ve never prayed for anything.
I’ve only whispered to the sky that cloaks me in childhood
and hoped that life would turn out okay.
But laws are passed and overturned
and each wicked grin in congress rips the fabric of my cloak
off my body.
Does this year mean I must confront it all?
Must add my tears to the puddle of my generation
and join them in changing things,
use my tender, fragile mind to fight the people who think me less valuable
than a fetus.

If I walk with my lover,
I must shade our hands under our shadows.
I must only kiss her in the dark,
or never kiss her at all.
Supposedly I was born to love this world,
to thrive under the solar system
and the way it ignores me.
As I age my value lessens,
yet I must value everything I touch,
every sense I’ve been blessed with, and every wink
a man throws me from his truck window.
But if I wink at a woman whom I love
I could be thrown behind rusted gray bars.
Is this adulthood?

I will not let the way my body has crystalized
or the way I bleed on the crescent moon
dictate how I must treat and be treated
by the world.
and give them the sound of my scream.
How I stretch my neck into the fog
and spit out a raging thunderstorm
until they finally hear me.

 

Haze is a junior in creative writing at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in San Francisco. They have work published in several literary publications, including Synchronized Chaos, The Weight Journal, and Parallax Journal, and have performed their poetry at the Youth Art Summit in San Francisco and 826 Valencia. When Haze is not writing, they can be spotted cuddling their three cats, holding their python, feeding their tarantula, or rescuing insects from being squashed.