People chase dreams of
white picket fences
and big backyards
and forget they
left their –
Smiles
back in kindergarten,
under the coloring table.
Matthew Joseph // LONELY SMILES
Manaswini Pujar // THE STRUGGLE OF MY TWO SELVES
Sometimes I feel like there are two people inside me
Leaving me in a constant state of struggle.
The first one won’t stay silent
Constantly going on
About her judgemental,
Belittling opinions.
The ones that cripple you inside,
And make you question everything.
But the other one listens.
Too scared to share her own thoughts,
She censors everything.
And conforms to the other.
Maybe if she were to speak up
And contribute
We would be completely content.
Confident and courageous,
Cruising through every obstacle.
But if she were to do so, the other one might laugh.
Mock her, undermine her,
Or ridicule her.
So she stays quiet.
Mahima // THE UNIVERSE
An enveloping darkness
With no beginning and no end.
It rules with an iron fist,
Like a dictator with the world at their feet.
You bow down to Its every command
And are blinded like a prisoner seeing sunlight
For the first time in decades
As you realize the limitless
Power It wields over you.
It decides the fate of all that inhabit it,
And could erase you from history
With a mere flick of a finger.
But It won’t.
Because you are
An insignificant speck
On a rock hurling around a dying star.
The world continues
Even if your world has come crashing down.
You will soon be buried by bigger problems
Like the city of Pompeii
Under a layer of ash.
The grains of time are
Slowly slipping away
For you.
Until one moment
When you will cease to exist.
The Universe won’t forget you,
Because it never even knew you.
Lior Amitay // THE BALLAD FOR A FALLING ANGEL
My my,
haven’t you all grown up?
Your sight shatters
Breaks,
Already broken.
Then eliminates.
Me.
I have known you better–
Brighter than a flame,
Lighter than air.
Should have known
To treat you better.
The moment to realize my mistake
It’s too late,
Too late.
Your soul,
Gone.
However,
Some ugly words
Seem to slice right through you
What I don’t get is,
why are you crying?
Your toxic words are no match.
But still,
you cry.
Fake tears,
That hurt others.
You are too dark to cry;
But too pure to understand.
Running through the night,
Never looking back.
You dazzle me over,
Careless.
I want to escape.
Forever,
From the demon
That I myself created.
As far as I know,
Happiness cannot be taken.
Only devoured away.
Kristina Wong // ODE TO MY EATING DISORDER
Tonight, Christmas evening,
Was the peak of our relationship.
Allow me to explain.
Before our family dinner,
I tried to wear my favorite dress—the black satin one,
That shines softly in light.
You tenderly called me a cow, and asked
‘Why don’t you cut away your fat?’
‘Can’t you carve your stomach flat?’
I trudged back into my room,
Your loving abuse clinging to my body all the way.
I changed into your favorite clothing for me—sweatpants,
And joined our parents and brother at the table.
At the sight of the steaming turkey and creamy potatoes,
You hissed kindly to me,
‘Touch it and you’ll regret it.’
Nobody else could hear the sweet-nothings you whispered,
But don’t worry, I did.
I swallowed your advice instead of my food.
And later I emptied my stomach of everything except your words.
Now thanks to you, my ribs are finally showing.
Our love truly goes to the bone.
Isabelle Lim // A REQUIEM FOR UNREQUITED MIDDLE SCHOOL LOVE
It’s okay that the only looks you give me
are glares of contempt.
‘Cause your eyes are like
the deepest pools of melted chocolate
from which I drink
to vanquish my perpetual thirst.
And of course I don’t mind that
the only thing you’ve ever said to me
besides
Can I borrow your homework?
was that my sneakers were lame.
‘Cause
even though you’re laughing
(at me)
I’m blinded by your smile
the kind that you see in those Colgate ads.
And it’s totally fine that
you never bothered to thank me the day
that I gave you the answers
to that test
or the test after that.
‘Cause when you say my name
(it’s Miguel, by the way
not Michael)
it flickers from your lips
a song as saccharine sweet as
the final bell on a Friday.
And my heart pummels my ribcage
threatening to sprout wings
and spring from my chest.
And since
none of those things vex me
in the slightest
I was
uh
wondering
if
maybe
you wanna-
What?
Oh.
No, the quiz is tomorrow.
Irene Zhang // MY RELATIONSHIP WITH WRITING THIS RELATIONSHIP POEM
“The poem is due Friday, this week.” The teacher announced on Tuesday.
“The topic of this poem is your relationship with anything.”
I, master procrastinator, scoffed and smugly thought,
“Hey, I still have four more days!”
Well, on Thursday, my Google™ doc still stared blankly at me.
“Shit,” I thought, “What do I write about?”
Should I write about the fig bars I constantly eat in class?
‘The sweet smell of the fig
The processed sugar
The soft whole wheat cover
It brought a tear to her eye as she gleefully devoured’
I carefully scrutinized the sample poem, the imagery was not vivid enough.
I frustratedly clenched my fists. The tears and glee didn’t go together
So I scrapped the draft, disappointed but already lured by new ideas
Grades? School? A serious poem?
Should I write about the severe lack of snow days this year?
‘A young girl
Sadly stared at the her computer
The 85{8f8d4e344c8a972b8e97d55fa7ec8be4d5f796681e06b247e4219849f812f758} chance on snow day calculator
Just went down to 50{8f8d4e344c8a972b8e97d55fa7ec8be4d5f796681e06b247e4219849f812f758}’
I carefully scrutinized the sample poem, not thrilled by the wording.
So I scrapped the idea, negativity starting to drip into my mind, panic lurking in the background
That was when I struck gold
Meta gold
“I’ve made up my mind!” I declared to my friend in the whimsical green dress writing her own
poem.
“I’ll write about my relationship with the process of writing a relationship poem.”
And so I wrote,
‘“The poem is due Friday, this week.” The teacher announced on Tuesday.’
Grace Zhang // GOLDFISH
Round, protruding eyes
Peering out at the world
Where she will never be
Able to brush her delicate fin upon.
Dragging her heavy, dress-like tail
To all the invisible barriers
That restricts her within her cell.
Her mouth opening and closing,
Uncertain of what to ask,
Maybe just curiosity and a million unanswered questions.
Light, darkness
Repeat
Waiting…
For food, water,
Or perhaps,
A purpose.
Alive, yet not living
Waiting…
Gauri G. // THE TURTLE
In a storm of sounds and siblings,
Underneath a silver moon,
She crawled over glistening grains
Towards the broth that would swallow her.
In a whirlwind symphony of color, she thrived.
Blades stroking in cycles towards home,
Where to hundreds of souls, she would give life;
Their mother forever unknown.
In her old age and wisdom,
She was draped by wrinkles and items obscure.
An abode that was no longer hers,
Yet still on her shoulders she bore its weight.
And at her final resting place,
She lay strewn at last;
To where she had crawled for eternity –
A landscape littered with trash.
Edward Nieshoff // SNAPPING TURTLE
The turtle crawls back
Into it’s hard shell,
Fish pass like bullets,
Day turns into night,
Night turns back to day,
Children’s feet sound like
thunder… on the floor,
Turtle knows some but not much
Of what’s happening above,
Back rigid like a mountain,
Head wrinkly like an old witch,
Teeth hang like a vampire,
Simply just misunderstood.