Poetry

erasure is

 

conviction boiling / at the line of screams

over autumn bruises / our faces

 

caged in river / this is where i weave ruses

& tell you how i          collect rust in the barrel

 

of my throat / when i look you are     de-aging

/ permafrost on lips / pretend that

 

only the earth is chapped & we          are not

full of fangs / bottle-glass for teeth while

 

you mourn our bodies long buried

in a windowless room / a pool of slaughter

 

tugs at my ankles / garden snakes coil ‘round calves

/ i lose step & watch

 

the whining of wings:  blue jays bleed open

egg shells         & fall out of the sky

 

/ what kind of death omen / tastes like apple cider?

requiems          have no place here:

 

remember softness / tell me how you

fractured your arm singing from

 

the cliffside / did you taste the           spill

of ocean like

 

grandiose rainfall or

did you drown in its yolk? / i ask

 

what you found on the hillside

& you lie / saying / nothing.

 

Stephanie Chang is a fifteen-year-old high school student from Vancouver, BC. Her work has appeared in The Penn Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Horn & Ivory zine. When not writing, she enjoys competing in debate tournaments.

 

At eleven, the burn left a dappled sea

across my legs. Picture body as terrain: swordfish threading

through reefs, divers rubbing their eyes in sleepless wonder.

Nurse told me to hold still. I couldn’t.

Mako sharks were circling their prey;

how they laced my thighs like silvered scabs.

 

There is coral under my fingernails

from kneading burn cream into the reefs.

These hands of mine raised tsunamis, banished

the anglerfish to its cave. Tell

the electric eel it is no longer safe. Tell

the skin-bubbles that Nurse’s needle

is baying for their blood.

(Like any good shark, it could taste fear.)

 

Five years later I pour green tea, unscathed.

A fly drowns in my cup. White hospital walls

dissolve with the tea leaves. Still I am afraid

of fish markets. Still it is not easy

to walk by rows of gutted eels and think:

             Look at you, brother. They’ve got you now.

 

Every time I look at the sea, it muscles

into something colder. Seabirds are sent to pick apart my thighs, dark burn-spots

evaporating, smoothening.

The pebbled waves wouldn’t know me now,

the way any good shark would call me alien

 

even though, I swear, I was animal once.

My skin wore bubbles like scales.

When I stole my body back from the tides,

I shook out the crabs from its pockets, listened to its pulse

the way fanged things fall in love with the night.

 

 

Nandita Naik is a junior at Proof School. She is published/forthcoming in the Rising Phoenix Review, Canvas Literary Journal, and Polyphony HS.

I come from a place where women clean,

wash restrooms and dishes not forced but

For a better future.

I come from a place where dirt rushes through your

Nails

where pedicures,

and nail polish don’t even matter.

I come from a place where your feet rush through

sand

where shoes aren’t even worn

I come from a place where not enough food is cooked

where the smell of spicy food runs through the valleys.

I come from a place where women’s rights and education

were discriminated.

I come from a place where babies are left in streets

abandoned and born in refugee camps.

I come from a place where survival is the only choice.

 

Kadra Haji came to the US when she was three years old. Her family fled war in Somalia and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya. After years of trying to come to the United States, they were finally accepted as refugees and moved to St. Louis. She grew up in St. Louis and attends school there. She is in ESOL classes at school to help perfect her English. At home she speaks Mai-Mai, it is the language of the Somali Bantu people. In middle school she joined a poetry club and loved it. Poetry helps her express her feelings about life.

“ I am Muslim, and I wear a hijab, I am African, I am American, I am a part of two different cultures-I love it, but it can be hard. Last year we studied poems by Warsan Shire, they really spoke to me, and I started writing again. Writing poems just doesn´t help me tell people who I really am  but it also helps me understand who I really am. I see myself In the future one day helping make the world a better place.” (Kadra Haji)

Bitter!

Blasé!

Chagrin!

He frowned lousily;

He wanted to die

As often as always.

These beasts allow themselves to smirch him

And denounce his reputation

Of  honourable teacher

Into a blatant selfish monster.

 

Insincere!

Joyless!

Remote!

They must abhor him,

In his presence they are always oblique;

Speaking things their hearts couldn’t feel-

But!

Behind his back,

Chiche! Gangs!

Vindictive fires

Words that pierced his soul,

-mind and heart.

 

He was obstinate.

He was dogged determined to disgrace them;

His decision was chancy-

But it mesmerized him completely.

The cheerful, joyous and jovial

Laughter and enthusiasm

They often share

As they bury him alive

Were prejudiced on his path.

He must set them to shame!

 

Teacher-

No!

Not that,

Nothing more than a sick savage!

 

It fascinated him;

How weak their respect was,

How lazy their hearts were,

How shallow their minds thought,

He was eager for his advantageous revenge.

 

Picking up his envious weapons

With a sharp smirk;

He walked into the classroom,

Holding the strength of his revenge.

The palliative source of his sorrows;

Tearing through their souls,

He let the beast loose.

-And no sound was heard.

 

He merried at their dismay-

All of them!

Everyone!

Looking so lost;

Mirthless!

Clueless!

And only five minutes remaining.

 

Thamara Bryan is a nineteen- year-old student of the University of Technology, Jamaica studying Actuarial Science. She gained a grade 1 pass in both English Language and Literature at the CSEC level where she sat 12 subjects passing all of them. She also obtained a grade 2 in CAPE Communication Studied. She has a passion for reading novels, poetry and stories and as such had experience writing her own works mostly based on experiences.

 

Oh the spork

Ever smooth in your nature and physique

Slick
Encompassing
Spoon

Edged, to maim and massacre morsels
Sharpened
Deadly
Fork

Of Vilest abbhoration of nature!
Most elegant hybrid of Amazement
Hidden and wrapped Corpse Prone To Penetration!
Clad in a shining cowl, ready to reveal it’s simple beauty.

Simply a Spork.

 

Keegan Tunaley just started writing this year as part of a class, but has taken a liking to creative writing. This caused him to take a serious interest in getting published.