Category: culture and tradition

Hyungbin Kim // THE NIGHT WE MET

Pack up your bags
Gather your thoughts
Go outside and feel the heat

Mixture of red color roaming the street
Hitting their heads on the titanium wall, wishing it to fall
Bottles of alcohol flying the sky
Keeping the fire inside them, ambitioning freedom inside their mind Black crows filling the whole sky
Hold flags to the sky
Until they reaches the clear high sky

Red mixes orange and orange mixes yellow
Tiny flames gather and make disasters of fire
People rush out to the street as the signal of revolt
Fire never go off
Tiny bit of flame rising from the ashes
Get bigger with more flames

Until the corruption falls

Conner Lofstrom // MOUNTAIN HOME

He stood atop the white, vast mountain.
His home.
Covered in darkness
The wind chilled across the layers of life
the pitch black ripples in parts of Bear Lake.
His friends swaying loosely in the wind
Giving off pleasant drafts of sweet caramel and soothing vanilla
Nothing but silence as the falling of snow began to bow at his friendly feet
Every step causing the snow to hug to his boot one by one.
Walking towards a bright blue ball of light and warmth that rose in the midst of the white spects

Melting the hearts of living things around.
He no longer saw the dark ripples but saw them begin to
Transform to a teal and light blue body that freely flowed, elegantly making way for all in its path.

All except the friendly moose
gracefully eating the lush green
Wet silky moss hidden beneath the sheets of the ice.
As he stood up pridefully with his rack of enormous horns.
Light glimmered across the glassy lake
reflecting light onto the darkened trees
On the animals in the sky and on the ground.
An unstoppable force to be reckoned with.

If only he could be there to experience it once again.

Hannah E. // FUNERALS

Funerals
I’ve decided
Are for the living.

When someone dies
They pass the pain in their life onto the people left behind.
And when you lose someone you love,
Every little task
Is energy draining
and life sucking.

It’s a war to think,
And a battle to feel.
And reality comes in little waves
And fully submerge you and you’ll drown.
And the harder you fight,
The harder it is to breathe and to think and to just
Be.

And then every little memory builds up until they all crash and  suddenly
There is a hole in the shape of them in your heart.
Your world goes colorless
All emotions and feelings are stripped from your everyday life.

The sound of their name
Rolling off of someone’s tongue
Puts a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes
but you smile,
And pretend everything is all right.
Because everything is.

You only grieve when there is nobody to see you at your most vulnerable,
To see you heave and shake
Until your knees buckle and everything blurs
And you have to focus on
In…. and out
In… and out
Because suddenly,
It has became in out in out in out and the room is shaking
And the world is spinning
And it hits you

Like the ground does when you walk down the stairs
Missing the last step,
That this was how they felt.
Because before you lost them,
They lost themselves.

And all of your unused love for them disintegrates into grief and hate
Hate for not doing anything when it crossed your mind
Hate for not reminding them that they were so loved
Hate
For not saving their life
Because you were too blind to see they were drowning.

Grief is the price we must all pay for love
We need to have both to truly appreciate love
And truly feel grief,
Because I think deep down
Grief is just expired love.

So we take all of our expired love,
Dress like death,
And prove that we will love again
With each shiny teardrop
That streams down our trembling cheeks
Every time someone we love falls
Like a leaf from on orange oak tree
On a brisk October morning.

Keegan Thourani // IMAGINATION

The time has come.
A year in waiting.
I walk into heaven.

Black smoke flies.
Burnt chocolate flew.
A volcano filled of Hershey’s milk chocolate
Spurted out of the chimney.

Oh no! It’s snowing ice cream!
The chocolate drizzled to make a sundae.
I bolted back to my house
Opened the refrigerator door
Grabbed a perfectly pudgy plump cherry

I raced back outside
Chucked the cherry on top a mound of a
Perfectly scoop of strawberry ice cream.
I could feel my stomach growing in size
As I continued to devour several pounds of ice cream.

But, Halloween was just as expected.
Little kids bolting house to house
Getting chased by their parents.
The annoying rings of doorbells.
Jolly ranchers. Candy corn.

Joshua Lee // THE NURSERY

I ask them what a colony is.,
Interrogating them as to why we are kept here.
All data collected calculates as “SAFE”.
We know we can go outside

They reply with “we must follow our orders,
It’s safer here.”
That’s their only answer.
“It’s protocol, you will understand one day,.”
They add in their computerized voices

We want to go outside.,
I want to meet whoever is out there.,
I want to see what’s out there!
So far we only know the pictures.
Those vivid, living pictures,
From this living thing called Earth.

We’re sick of these metal plastic walls
I’m tired of the same holograms

They can’t keep this up,
Locking us up from the real world.
Let us go outside,
Or we will go outside.

Yuanhui Zhang // STRANGER

I took out a piece of paper
Carefully put it on the table.
Write my real name down carefully.
The time people call this is numerable.

I grabbed my old coat from cabinet
It was hanging neatly
had the accent from my hometown
I tried to take a walk
Try to detect the world that was unknown

Water drops are hanging on the grass.
My coat became wet.
I looked at myself in the shadow.
I was still struggling yet.

The roses hold tightly with each other
They do not know the scene outside their ground.
A dandelion was travelling alone from somewhere
I will hold her in my hand.

I put her nicely in my pocket
Give warmness to this loner
She must miss the soil that she grow up
We are both foreigner.

Someone has different appearance with me
Smiled at me and say hi
I am used to this culture and language

Punya G. // EL SUEÑO AMERICANO

¡Mamá! I shouted. It was so wonderful to see
someone familiar again.

The guards, white as abuela’s
mejillas, Stared at me as I ran
down The hallway of the
enclosure.

I saw my mamá and papá,
Tears in their eyes, We
sprinted towards each other,
As though we were
maratonistas Breaking
through the ribbon,At the
finish line.

Earlier this year, We had decided to go to
the land of the Gringos, Live the American
Dream – el Sueño Americano.

But mamá and papá were taken from
me – No, I was taken from them.

All of a sudden I felt these hands around me, As
though my abuelito was hugging me, His warm
chubby hands holding me As the smell of pan
dulce – sweet bread, engulfed us both.

But something was different about those hands,
They hurt.
I looked behind me and saw a man, half
hombre half toro.

I tried to pull away to no avail – And
screamed, “Mamá, papá
ayúdenme”

Suddenly memories flashed through my head The
tortillas we used to make together, The time we spent
looking at the sunset, at my favorite playa And the
smell of my abuelitos… And then the memories
disappeared.

It occurs to me now that I won’t be there
anymore, Under the sol mexicano, Laughing
and eating tamales with my cousins, Tíos,
tías, abuelos, abuelas, and other relatives.

And now I might never even fulfill the
so-called Sueño Americano.

Xinyi Zhao // NANJING

7:15, tide raised:
Surfing in the wave
of the crowd,
The station doesn’t
seem to have space
to stand still.

Bouncing onto
each other like penguins,
Finally able
to get on the train;
The pressure of air
keeps one remembering
breathing.

Washed out by
the flood of people;
Drifting with
the mob, floating
back to the surface.

As violent as the
Waves seem,
In a small
valley road
was able to find
some peace.

As marvelous as the
tide seems
as a whole;
Yet each is
an individual drop;

Feeling at home.

Rafael Pedro // CARILO, ARGENTINA

At the entrance you enter a new and unexpected place
than what you were just on for hours
From miles upon miles of flat empty grasslands
To a world of tall trees and dirt roads.
Dirt road leads you to a beach

White fluffy sand
Kids and adults playing soccer
While listening to music on speakers
Ice cream and churro vendors attract
The attention of hundreds

At your house in Carilo
The scent of asados radiate into the night sky
Laughter fills the table for hours
Where stories are told
And never forgotten

At your house in Carilo
the scent of asados radiate
into the night sky.
Laughter fills the table
for hours where stories
are told and never
forgotten

Sirawich H // THE LAND OF SMILES

Smog and cars,
The bustle of night life in the streets
And markets filled with
spicy, sweet, and sour food
Modern malls filled the night skies
With light and life.
Temples and palaces
Filled with farang
From every corner of the globe.

Warm and sunny beaches,
Where farang outnumber the natives.
Crystal blue beaches,
Pure white sand,
Snorkeling and diving.
Paradise along the coast

The cool, crisp air amoung
The grand mountains and
Highlands filled with
Forests of life.
Long treacherous hikes
And elephant rides
In the morning mist.

The beauty of past and present,
Nature and humans,
Mixed into one grand place.