Summer 2018

When karma shot him in

the bubble tea shop, they

shot you too. Heart fell straight

out of your chest, plopped across

the bamboo floor, thrashing like a

fish out of water. Its ugly veins

rupturing, spitting ostensibly.

A desiccated, carved out

hollow. Nightmares of

tapioca balls exiting the

revolver, ricocheting off

the walls, smearing all the

love letters you traced with

him in spilled sugar. How

to not burst whilst

rearranging burnt

bergamot orange and

darjeeling tea to call each other

“honey.” Now he bleeds

oolong like he used to

inhale it from your mouth in

between shifts, in

between the eternal spaces

where you didn’t utter it

back.

 

Grace Zhang is a seventeen year old from Princeton High hungry to get out of the bubble and experience the world. Her work has been nationally commended by the Scholastic Art & Writing awards and is forthcoming in the National Poetry Quarterly. Some things she likes are liminal spaces, peach oolong bubble tea, and the mundane morning stars.

This is not a poem

and I am not a poet

when I can’t find eloquent words to describe

that more blacks are incarcerated in America right now

than in apartheid South Africa

when beautiful words fail me and I can’t express

the worries of the deprived through the complexity of language

that our key policy makers and leading civil servants

have never had a job outside of politics

that sixty percent of Jews identify as atheists since the holocaust

no, I am not a poet

when I can’t find crafty words to illustrate the fact

that before 2008 Mandela had been on America’s list

of most dangerous terrorists for more than half a century

that

massacres and genocides and partitions and conflicts

give way to erratic sensationalizing where no one can hear the cries

that when the ending is unsatisfactory

not many stick around to watch

some wax lyrical about the tragedy and the shock

about something tangible lost by something intangible

the pleasures of life lost to the end of a sharp knife

the joy of living lost in a bullet wound

but the real comedy is how some fail to acknowledge it at all

chaos befallen on them who dared to utter a syllable

lest someone knows it was their fault

the plot twist is that there is no plot twist

and I wish there was some metaphor

to lower you into this grief

but that is why this is not a poem

and I am not a poet

but it’s fair to say

the heart’s crafted to evermore persist

a rugged pioneer of time, relentless optimist

that sometimes it’s an act of bravery even to exist

but you see

I’ve crossed lines, not followed traditional poetic form

failed to construct elaborate metaphors to explain

that immigration isn’t a choice

that a person probably has more Muslim blood

than the people in the mosque they conspire to blast

never is survival available to all those who deserve it

and so it goes

how do I explain all this and still retain artistic worth?

the wanderers, the grievers- here they are doomed to roam

hatred boils in them and sears the world like a blazing scar

and humanity falls when tyrants are hailed

but how can one be falling, if flying feels the same?

how does man forgive himself

for all the things he did not become?

a refugee buried within suffering

for a war he cannot comprehend

but it’s all done now

anger surrounds us

hate courses through us

yet this hate is unaware

of the humanity she births into us

we are made of all the things that break us

just to keep us alive

maybe I should’ve just said that, but I didn’t

because

this is not a poem

and I am not a poet

of things that seem out of place in today’s world

like writing a poem which isn’t one

 

Aarushi Bhardwaj is a school student from India and has been previously published in Teen Ink Magazine and The Hindustan Times.

I rub the neon rind

Of the juicy clementine,

A fragrant sun I cradle in my palm.

 

It croons of life so sweet,

And it’s mighty nice to eat,

That thick-skinned ball from California’s groves.

 

It’s coated with a shine

Of chemicals that rhyme

With names of third-world countries I can’t say.

 

I’m sure it’s safe to eat,

(If no substances have leached)

Into the soil where this gem was grown.

 

See—the crop must have been good,

For they all look as they should,

And taste the same and share their DNA.

 

And since we’ve cloned a sheep,

(To match the people that we feed)

It’s no trouble to clone a few small fruits.

 

Why, in only a short time

Instead of me in line,

My double will be buying this instead.

 

Caitlin is an English major at Grove City College who has too many half-filled journals lying around. When she’s not writing, she can be found eating pizza, watching Seinfeld, or listening to music.

These days I’m still adrift,

captain of a childhood tub

that wishes it were a skiff.

 

Someday I’ll shipwreck & wash up

on a shore just strange

enough to do. Kneeling in foreign muck,

 

I’ll build a house, shingle to hinge.

Like this. Four walls, each brick a word.

Slant rhymes for roof-slats, arranged

 

in terza rima to keep rain out. Hard

truths for muntins & panes.

Each door a creaky metaphor from cupboards

 

to closets. Ideas grand & mean

will waft from the beanstalk

chimney like a kitchen kettle’s whine.

 

And in the garden, silk-

petaled inspirations will puff

& bloom with incessant talk.

 

Lydia Friedman is a nineteen-year-old time traveler who once went on a blind date with a marble statue in Vienna. She lives in New England and can be reached by howling into the void, or at www.crookedbutinteresting.wordpress.com.

Consecrate me with dead leaves,

weave me a crown of cobwebs,

cloak my weary shoulders in mist & moss –

today is my birthday.

 

Tonight I am king of the forest.

My scepter is the limb of an old oak;

my ministers are poison mushrooms.

I will make war with the moon.

 

My coat of arms is a chrysanthemum,

the proudest of flowers.

Tonight I will unlace my harlequin’s mask

and make wishes on cattails instead of candles.

 

Lydia Friedman is a nineteen-year-old time traveler who once went on a blind date with a marble statue in Vienna. She lives in New England and can be reached by howling into the void, or at www.crookedbutinteresting.wordpress.com.

Sew the sun into your chest

And pull it out

When the sky is napalm

And you can’t see the horizon line because it doesn’t exist for you

 

Remember where you came from, young gypsy girl

Trace a map with your finger in the sand

And fill your pockets with granules of a past, eroded down

 

Plant a seed in your mind

With the dirt on top your father’s tapered back

And water from your mother’s swollen eyes

 

Plant your roots in a new place

A better place

Grow.

 

Sophia Bouzid is a Muslim-American writer of Algerian and German descent. She writes poetry for her school’s literary magazine and the Bay Area Poetry Coalition. When she isn’t writing, she is probably at a show rehearsal. She also enjoys searching for unconventional objects to plant flowers in.