Poetry

In our culture, we burn our dead(s), scatter the ashes
in rivers
and so nothing remains.
Why this heaviness then? What slipped from the fire
and landed on us
like snow on hunched shoulders?
My mother whispers
death is a cycle,
a hoop we all must jump through
and life in that moment, feels redundant.
Returning home, everything remains unchanged, yet
I am making adjustments.
Sleep seems like the best option.
If not death, then I’ll take anything that resembles it.

 

 

Ashish Kumar Singh (he/him) is a poet from India and a post-graduate student of English Literature. Along with other things, he writes about queer experiences in a country that denies their existence, and the collision between self, culture and religion. Other than writing, he reads and sleeps extensively. Previously he has been published in Brave Voices Magazine, The Mark Literary Review, Dust and Sledgehammer Lit. Twitter: @Ashish_stJude

 

—best viewed on a desktop browser—

 

Fervid night—

i er

candle f c s

l k

a tantalizing blaze.

Light / bleary mind whispers / Achingly, I metamorphosize.

Noctuid anatomy,

thorax propels dark wings

forward…

Obsidian eyes glisten

as flame dances with intensity.

Image sears each photoreceptor

a hundred superimposed suns;

lost in a trance,

I circle closer.

circle circle

circle

Doomed trajectory,

loose inwards

spirals until i inwards,

taper

immolate this fragile body—

watch: instantaneous disintegration.

Reduced to a fine ash,

organs s c a t t e r in the wind;

I watch them d i s a p p e a

feeling weightless at last.

 

Snigdha Garud is an Indian-American writer who loves reading poetry, particularly metaphorical and visual poetry. She has also experimented with these forms in the past—with varying degrees of success. A current rising junior from Erie, PA, she is an avid painter as well, and loves exploring the overlap between visual art and writing in her work.

Let me be a witness to true things—
coffee percolating, summer
rain early morning cigarettes

Let me speak well, and kindly
to strangers on the street
and to myself when I’m alone,

Let all the dusty paperbacks mean something.

Let me know who I am
without the permission of those
who don’t and let me always strive for better

Let me be content with quiet
until I’m stirred to move
then let my actions be sincere

Let me be a journalist
whose subjects
are asphalt and tires
Let me not disturb the universe,

but Let me go always further

whether in chairs or in woods, and

Let me bring back a record of the human
heart that will outlive the beating of my
own

Lord,

Let me have the strength to live without

you. Let me know I won’t live without love.

 

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

in the scale of things, i am a feather plucked from the wings of

grief, motioning towards a citadel of zero quietude. forgive me— i’ve

tried stanzaring laughter into a poem & watering seeds into a garden

of lullabies; but— at the mention of my name, everything beautiful

dies, as if to mean, beauty is not for me. in the last poem i wrote, i

danced love into the pages, but it took the back door & seethed into

oblivion— when they say love is in the air, i vaccinate my mind &

barricade

every opening in my body. in the scheme of things, i am a dagger

 

in

the

chest

of

beauty.

 

 

Flourish Joshua, Frontier XX, has appeared in London Grip Poetry, miniskirt magazine, East French Press, Olongo Africa, Sledgehammer Lit Mag, Poetry Column NND, Ghost City Review, Brittle Paper, Blue Marble Review, Bluebird Review, No Contact, the Indianapolis Review, Agbowó, the minnesota review, Magma Poetry & elsewhere. He is the poetry editor for LERIMS Quarterly, associate poetry editor for miniskirt magazine & a Best of the Net nominee. He tweets from @fjspeaks.

From an early age I was taught to be mindful of how I present myself.
Never walk in a store with my hood on.
Be careful with who I’m in public with.
Don’t draw too much attention.
Keep my pants pulled up.
Place my hands on the steering wheel if I’m pulled over.
Always be respectful, even if I’m disrespected.
Granted, these all have led me to be a very responsible person,
But I can guarantee there aren’t any white kids who have to know this.
Those kids don’t have to get “The Talk.”
Those kids aren’t told they can’t drive the car they want because they might get pulled over, because “they look suspicious” then get sent to jail. Or worse.
Those kids don’t have to change or cut their hair because “it doesn’t fit the standards of the school.”
Those kids don’t have to worry about their name being “proper” enough for the job they want.
Those kids don’t have to live with the fact that they could do everything right in life and still could be killed before their 20th birthday.
You may think these kids have it made—
But what they don’t have is pride.
No one can make me feel ashamed about the way I look.
Because that’s a huge part of why I am the person I am today.
I have the advantage, whether anybody sees it that way or not.

 

Being black is not something to overcome,
But something to embrace.
See my brown skin
All this melanin
Is a gift to me
Every “problem” it may come with
Is nothing I can’t handle
It’s nothing I haven’t seen before
Nothing new to me
And no one can make me feel ashamed for this brown skin.

 

DeAnthony Logwood is a junior at Overton High School. He has been a part of the Creative Writing Option program for three years. He is a part of the track/cross country team and is involved in JROTC and many other activities throughout school.

谁知盘中餐

粒粒皆辛苦

–李绅

 

there’s an old poem every Chinese kid was made to memorize in school; it goes, every grain of rice is obtained with hardship; eat well the food God gave you. the other Chinese girls are size twos and zeros and wear brandy melville; i wonder if they listened.

I never wear low-waisted shorts because the sides of my stomach protrude like a swollen lip; aren’t those pants too tight for you, he says; eyes squinted like a hunter eyeing its prey; he almost steps forward. I almost step back.

I learned to look at my body the way my sister looked at her salad before pushing it to the side of her plate. my body was not my home, not the chafing of thighs or the way my chin sank into my neck when I smiled; if I could pinch off my skin like wet sand maybe I could mold myself into the swimsuit I bought two months ago.

you look just like your mother; words I never wanted to hear; he laughed at her and she began eating cabbage soup for breakfast and lunch and dinner, put three bowls of rice on the table instead of four. she doesn’t say grace anymore.

I cried at dinnertime and hid my tears in the broth of la mian; my grandmother slid a spoon across the table and it sputtered to a stop in front of me. dark except for the swinging lightbulb casting shadows in circles around the small wooden table.

nothing in our house goes into the trash before it goes into a plastic container for tomorrow’s lunch.

too much rice travels to your hips and your thighs; fried food makes your skin dry like parchment; no snacks no juice no fat remember press downwards on your uvula; whatever happened to li li jie xin ku?

I lost six pounds and the scale became my altar.

are those your sister’s shorts, he says, why does your ass stick out like that; i think, why are you looking at my ass why are you looking at my ass why are you looking at my ass why are you looking at my ass why are you looking

if our bodies are temples why are they defiled by men who think they are gods.

 

Lauren is a Singaporean writer currently residing in Bethesda, MD. She attended the University of Iowa International Program’s Between the Lines workshop, and is an editor for the MoCo Student newspaper. She can be found most often in the auditorium lighting booth, where she serves as Whitman Drama’s lighting director.