January 2024

all of my friends are dying
before they can become people
all of my dogs are dying
before they can become teenagers
& god it’s just so scary to exist this young: (to be)
the first breath and the last step—
fighting so hard to exist
while tripping over the exit,
to be so close either way.
& isn’t it just the same direction
when you’re too small to know the difference—
to even know
what you’re running towards?
& there are barks from heaven
in the sounds of my past
& when I sprint in the dark
I don’t even know which light
I am running to / from
& I promise that I still love you
even though I’m still living (sorry)
like a human would
& if it makes you feel better,
most nights I wish for the future
to morph into dog years
& for you to take my place,
running wild in the backyard—
a kid with a chance & a dog sitting in his lap—
& to have 7 years to spare
& to have 7 years to
& to have 7 years
& to have 7
& to have
& to
&

 

 

 

Austin Anthony is a seventeen-year -old writer from Texas—his poems have appeared in or are forthcoming within the Eunoia Review, Juste Milieu Zine, and the Diamond Gazette.

 

 

Lauren is a high school senior in Singapore. In her free time, she loves playing tennis, reading, and running her online bath bomb business. She aspires to major in engineering in university.

between our gnashed teeth,
smoke curdles.
we draw lifetimes across our tongues,
mouths pressed to hot pavement.
summer softens into stiff ash,
smoldering marlboro nubs.
every man prints a smile
over his lips, tastes hollowing.
to an empty night, he begs for ocean to swallow the land.
to bristle his unmoving wife.
sand trickles into flame
& children still molding island
into home burn with the remnants of the shoreline.
concrete blemishes into dust.
when night parts,
there will only be wire
spilling into veins. plastic flickering.
each body ends in standstill:
crumbled sandstone, rotted palm, dead boys’ cotton shirts.
a man lurches towards death,
lands softly. a man is called home.
the neck of the moon cranes
to catch our corpses.
morning is homeless.
is a daughter begging
to an oxidized locket of lost brothers
swallowed in rust.
is a hotel worker offering juice
to soften hearts’ muscle, strip it of striations.
is a closed resort stripped into a hospice scouring
through her own ashes for open beds.
dusk ends in a call for prayer.
few split open their mouths, swelled with ash.
god, save our knotted bodies,
swallow these hundred fallen stones before we suffocate.
we inhale the perfume of a land burning,
nestle the incense between our hands.
soft, burnt sage chronicles the clock
pressing herself into another dawn.

 

 

Ela Kini is a student attending Hunter College High School. She has been previously recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation and the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the Rising Phoenix Review, the Eunoia Review, and elsewhere. She likes to write while wandering sidewalks.

It’s funny the days my brain chooses to miss you.
Some of them I expected,
Christmas, Easter, Fathers Day,
However, I didn’t expect to be ready to cry before my cousin’s wedding
Today he is reading his vows, but eight years ago he was reading your obituary.
I didn’t expect to miss you at my eighth grade graduation, thanking my family in my speech.
I knew they could hear me in the crowd, but I hope heaven is close enough that you could too.
Sometimes I am jealous of my younger self, a little girl who was oblivious to the life cycle.
Immune to grief.
The only death she has experienced is her dog’s,
But that girl grew up.
Now she knows death, has become familiar with it even, but it never gets easier.
That little girl sits up at night now hoping there is sound in heaven,
Hoping Papa can still hear her.

 

 

Maria Polizzi is a sophomore in high school and though she hasn’t submitted her writing  in a while, she’s never stopped writing poetry. She writes poems to articulate what she is feeling in the moment, and hopes to continue doing so. She also dances, and enjoys spending time with her family.

Splayed fingertips cradle oil in their clasp, dripping
with remembrance—blotched, coconut. Amma ropes

my hair in bunches, sews each lock into place with
a touch of copra, tells me kanna, I wish I had your

curls—but I yearned for pin-straight, so thin it
could be folded into paper cranes. Swans drifting

in saccharine; my hair sunken as waves gush to the
scalp. A thousand follicles drowning until syllabic

remains break the surface and my body forgets to
breathe, curdles an accent in the larynx. She twists

ringlets into grapheme, says to me: Ammamma had
hair like you, gripping yet so fragile. One droplet laces

my strands, mourns the skin, unspools away from its
origin—a matrilineage in taproot. Notice how my

tangles are brittle like Amma’s voice, chafed in
English. How her hands combed down to split ends:

watch two become four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two,
my receding femininity splintered—a diaspora

of my mothers before these bathroom tiles.
Little black circles fallen to the floor.

 

 

 

Rishi Janakiraman is an Indian-American high school student who writes from North Carolina. His work has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, and he appears or is forthcoming in YWP, Chrysalis, and Eunoia Review, among others. A Top 15 Foyle Young Poet of the Year, he also reads for Polyphony Lit and enjoys listening to Fiona Apple.

if forever is twelve, on average. Not accounting
for gender, lifestyle, illness, or god-forbid accidents.
The one I have, sun-sleeping, belly-up, is seven and
a girl, She absorbs all light in photos and sleeps under
my desk, which is more empty than it is used. I count
her estimated years on one hand but I’m old enough
to be aware of our place in this world, irrational and
impermanent. There for the moment and someplace
else for the next. My dog does not know any better
than the life she has at home, quietly asking me
why I have to leave and arrive back here tired. Asking,
why is it that I could see you sad but I can’t do anything
about it. With pressed fingers against black fur, I’ll find
her roots grayed at the seams. A pea-sized tick clinging
to dead skin. I gladly string it out and she brings her nose
to the parasite. Where did it come from if I’ve never met
other dogs outside the house. I can’t answer the questions
her nose asks. I wish I was someone who knew everything,
for her sake and for my own. My dog’s tongue is out
because the summer is unbearable. So, I let the door open,
and she stands between what’s in there and what’s left out
for her. I’m old enough to be aware of our place in this world,
irrational and impermanent. There for the moment and
someplace else for the next. My dog does not know any better
than to stand there and wait for me to say hey, you can go.
Dry your paws by the door. Sleep under my desk. Belly-up against
the fan. I’ll follow. Google says the average lifespan of a labrador
retriever is twelve years, time enough to be forever. She is seven.
I let her in the house, which becomes more home than it is empty.
What will she be without me, I wonder, starfished under a sun spot,
eye boogers nestled in her eyes. I wipe them away with my thumb
and she brings her paw to bat my hand away, that’ll be enough.

 

 

Mae is currently in their senior year, writing an essay collection about video games for their thesis, which they hope will work out in the end. They have work previously published by HEIGHTS Ateneo and are working to find more places for pieces to be. They are also currently playing Breath of the Wild for the first time, seven years late but figured it was about time they finished a Zelda game, and have something extra to talk about in an essay or two.