Poetry

 

 

Put some lipstick on.
Get some blush, you’ve lost color in your face.
Oh my, is that a mustache?
Laser it away.
God forbid your legs are prickly.
You could fill a C
Just add toilet paper
I’ll show you.

 

 

.                                                                              How many times have you gone to the gym this
.                                                                                                                                                week?
.                                                                                                                    Eat more, you’ll bulk up faster.
.                                                                                     Hey baby, wanna come home with me tonight?
.                                                                                                                 She’s probably just on her period,
.                                                                                                                      That’s why she ain’t feelin’ me.
.                                                                                                                  Come on, you’re late for practice.

 

Are you done?
Can I come in?
Oh heavens.
What is that?

.                                                                                                                                               Open up
.                                                                                                                    Son, I’ve started the car.
.                                                                                                                                             Oh my god
.                                                                                                                        What are you wearing?

 

What is around your chest?
Put down the scissors.
Put them down.
I swear to God, not one more snip.

 

.                                                                                                                             Whose bra is that?
.                                                                                                                     I’m calling your mother.
.                                                                                                                          And the silk robe too,
.                                                                                                                                   And the lipstick
.                                                                                                            What did I do to deserve this?

 

Your curls
Your beautiful long curls
I’m booking a hair appointment,
We can fix this.

.                                                                                                              Alright, give everything to me
.                                                                                                               It’s fine, no one has to know
.                                                                                                               We can fix this.

 

 

Denise Rogozin is seventeen years old. She has always loved writing, whether it was her unintentional re-creations of the Harry Potter series in middle school, or spoken word poetry about gang violence during her sophomore year of high school. She loves being able to share her thoughts in a different kind of way with poetry, and hopes to share some now through one of her favorites.

being a black child living in America is an extremely difficult task

we are forced to deal with all the standards and stereotypes

that have been placed upon us for generations

we are the children who must bear the burden of our ancestors

we are also victims of racism, discrimination, and oppression

black women, specifically, have been lied to for generations

ever since we were children,

we were fed our daily meal of lies by a society that does not care for us

we are told that our skin is too dark, that we are too curvy,

that our bodies do not match the molds created by European standards

 

people tell us that we are “pretty for a black girl” or “pretty for a dark skinned girl”

although these may seem as though they are compliments,

the underlying truth is that they are saying that people of African descent are not beautiful

OR if we are beautiful, it is only when we are light skinned

why is white the only standard of beauty out there?

 

there are many variations of black people and black beauty out there in the world

it makes no sense that the only ones who are respected by society

are those who are lighter and have features like those of Europeans

what makes black not beautiful?

 

to me, black women, like my mother, exhibit strength and confidence

and do not let any obstacle get in their way.

i wish to be like them

they are my true inspirations

 

to me, black is not the color of darkness and hatred

but instead the color of

beauty, hope, and freedom

 

 

Kalijah is a tenth grader from California who identifies as a self-proclaimed chai tea enthusiast. It does not seem possible to her that people are able to get through a week without at least three cups of the stuff. She is a vivacious reader and does not think herself safe and content unless she is in the middle of at least fifteen books at the same time. In addition to this, she is also a feminist and a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The sky is the color of a rusty

crayon, the house a black box

with a triangle on top. In the attic,

a boy sleeps on a bed of broken

sheets, a bar of light across his body.

The dark in his room is friendly

as erasers. Grinning pencils

are leaning in the closet,

the shadow of a stuffed monkey

claps his hands. The laundry basket

rolls around laughing. And the room

simplifies. A wall becomes a line,

a chair a friendship. A belt buckle

disappears. Above him is a shadow

of a giant pair of hands, tousling

his feather hair, and the boy’s stick arms

are crooked, elbows bent, as if he is cradling

a bird.

 

Hanna Iruka Hall is eighteen years old and loves to read and write. Her work is forthcoming in Eunoia Review and has been recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She is fascinated by Medusa from Greek mythology, and would like to conduct a slime-mold experiment in her free time.

mad adam east of eden
makes up his own rules
to a game he does not play.
he will make her the burnished
sandalwood
tree of life and
she will take the apple
she will take the fruit
the snake decides
swallow the body the blood
of the etz chayim the
mates for life

 

back alley blackwater lilith.
a hot black tar
tangerine jumpsuit and
smiles–no
grins–no
sneers at
the pavement melting between her teeth.
the concrete forest
the polluted cosmopolitan politico
cold, calculated,
chaotic greens and greys
reflected in her eight-ball eyes.

her mother was a forest fire:
ardent, searing.
her father a gutter song
of half-spent cigarettes and
sweltering workday’s grime
waiting to be burned

 

lilith:
cuts her teeth on a road just laid down
hot black tar between molars
grinding his pavement punches down through the
atmospheric smog splinter infested sidewalk rollerblading from
his lips sits a cigarette rolled from the very jet black she walks on

and she: like her mother
will not submit.

mad adam makes up his own rules
to a game he does not play.

 

in kind:
she will tear herself out of him
stop the traffic in his heartbeat
cause a collision
and slip away

 

lilith will play his game
play him like the devil’s fiddle
twirl him around her little finger
like a snake around an apple tree
lilith: coffee-candied lips and a
sweet as saffron smile
she will not play she will win
bring eden to its winter
she will not merely survive his game
lilith: the screech-owl
the night-hag
the monster
the black tarred and feathered abomination
she will not merely survive his game
she will tear it to pieces and kill it with her beak
she is everything he cannot be and more
she: like he mother
will not submit.

 

she will burn every inch of eden until he knows
until they know
she will not be a pawn to push towards a sea of grey

she will leave the apple trees to rot
and burn the bridges she comes to
whatever she may be:
night hag,
night monster,
night witch

will be better than a slave.

 

 

Rebecca Flieder is a Creative Writing major from New Hampshire whose works often focus on love and nature as they relate to the modern world. When not writing, she loves to wander the woods behind her home and pretend she’s not the one that ate all the chocolate chip cookies.

 

 

Stowie holds her grandfather’s tobacco pipe.

She blows silvery wispy clouds into the sky

And makes plans to find Alaska,

wanting the gentle love of cubs and bears.

I turn to the armoire and reach for my shawl,

pulling the loose strings of fading lavender.

 

In the kitchen hangs the drying lavender

Which she sometimes lights in her pipe.

We sit by the open door and I pull my shawl

Closer around my shoulders. She looks at the sky,

And she says that the clouds look like bears

And that today feels like Alaska.

 

I ask her if she knows that in Alaska

The sky is always a color like lavender,

is always crying, for the weight is too much to bear.

She looks down and rolls the smooth old pipe

Between her fingers, and says that the sky

In Alaska is fine with its cloudy shawl.

 

I trace the cracks in the veneer with my shawl

Covering the tip of my finger like Alaska

Covers Stowie’s thoughts. She says that the sky

Here is too big for her and a piece of lavender

Falls from its clothespin. She puts down the pipe

And she says she wishes she were a bear.

 

Her father walks into the kitchen, bearing

A basket. Re-hanging the lavender, my shawl

Falls and her father mumbles about a broken pipe.

He tells her not to go to Alaska

And in his basket lies something lavender

That he made small for her— it is the sky.

 

The armoire now holds the tiny sky.

Its finely cracking veneer bears

the weight. I’m going to paint it lavender

I think, the same as the color of my shawl.

Stowie asks if I’ve ever been to Alaska

And then says something about pipe

 

Dreams. We watch the sky put on its starry shawl

As celestial bears dance somewhere above Alaska,

And with lavender paint we patch the broken pipe.

 

 

Allison Gish is a lover of all things natural hailing from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Young Ravens Literary Review and Foxcroft Chimera Literature and Arts Magazine.

 

 

The day you are taken out,

I am left at home to take a bath.

 

I turn the faucet and let the silver

rush my palm, the nanny watching

 

as the bathtub swells, and deepens.

I do not know of you yet, resting

 

in the bloom of my mother,

the waves spreading all around you:

so small.

 

I do not know of Dr. Kilburg,

do not know of her sad mouth saying

 

No more heartbeat, no more, no more.

 

The water of the bathtub cups me

 

like my mother cups herself when

she comes home. She tries to smile

 

at the pink child in the water,

but the ache will remind her of

 

will remind her.

 

 

Annabel Chosy is a high school student from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work has been published in The Blueshift Journal, Words Dance Publishing, Crashtest, and Stone Soup. She has also received recognition from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.