The Queer Girl Creation Story

In the beginning, the body knew nothing
of desire. Submerged in a darkness it clung to for fear
of witnessing itself. Untouched but by a wave
it did not understand. God whispered into the waters: let me show you.

(i)
By ethereal light, She announced the body no longer
cloaked in shame.

They will say it took one day, don’t
listen. Not all is easy.

(ii)
Complexity birthed confusion.
She separated love from lust
but they still touched on the horizon.

(iii)
The waters were gathered, but still teased the land.
Delicate petals unfurled to the promise of dew. Vines snaked
from holy ground, reaching for the heavens. The earth could breathe,
but it did not want to without its lover lapping in gentle waves.

(iv)
Half-reigned by a sphere of fire, transferring desire until the setting
and the settling in the body. A core of swallowed flames. On edge of eruption.

Half-reigned by a body unlike its own. She planted stars as reminders
not to lose oneself under the floodlight of a distant gaze.

(v)
There is vulnerability in the becoming. Wings snapped in the body,
beating against breaking ribs until birdsong soared from ruins.
The seas stirred and from devastation came revelation. The body
looked upon itself, apologised in trembling sincerity, and called its
nature to thrive.

(vi)
In palm, She witnessed flourishing and the heavens quivered.
The body was done. She whispered to the woman: now, nurture
those who turn to the ground and weep. Say: let me show you.

(vii)
Draping over her heaving chest,
God sighed. The word: pride.

By Lauren Elizabeth Taylor

Biography:

 

Lauren Elizabeth Taylor is a queer writer from Derbyshire, England. She is the author of Will You Still Love Me if I Love Her? and How Will I Sound When My Voice Returns?

Dear Khione

o’ mistress of winter
rest your heart here on the
cold apartment floor, not
a penny left for a space heater

self-induced hypothermia as
you pray for salvation

no legacy in your father’s cold eyes

o’ ingenue of frost
may you not let limbs thaw but
grow stone cold

no youth for sinners
sinners
cheats

we don’t have no god

we don’t want no god

we want salvation

sinners
cheats
let unclean hands purge
winter from our hearts
not when we’ve become ice
in self-preservation

year after year
winter is unyielding

isn’t it cruel?

leaving your youth for dead in a
hotel bathroom

spilling icy tears in a
back alley

frozen heart in
honeymoon dreams

icicles form in the crevasses of your broken heart

femininity

isn’t it cruel?

By Amanda Kay

Biography:

Amanda is a current sophomore at Santa Clara High School. She enjoys swimming, reading, and drinking a good cup of tea.

Sentences From a Scrapped Letter to Cis People

I hate that I’ve ever hated myself for you.
I cannot embody what you think my body should be.
There is no one universal transgender experience.
There is no one universal anything.
We are as diverse as wildlife and as complex as love.
Understanding isn’t necessary for you to treat us like people.

One does not need to uncover the mysterious ways
in which God works to trust her,
and we can enjoy a good slice of pizza
without knowing exactly how it was made
and why its maker decided
on that particular amount of pepperoni.
I’ll explain myself to you over some pizza
so long as I get to eat all the slices.

Your mind is not as mighty as you believe it to be.
Remember, I’m still a person.
We’ll never understand what it’s like to be each other.

I must admit, sometimes I want to be very kind to you.
I will not beg. I call you by the name
you tell me to, without an argument,
without so much as a question.
You should return the favor.
I am more than a name. You are more than a name.
We should be more than documentation.

Trans people are not impersonators.
We are not “almost” who we say we are.
We are everywhere.
We have always been here.
We are everyone else.

I know myself better than you ever will.

By Dmitri Derodel

Biography:

Dmitri Derodel is a poet, songwriter, essayist, aspiring music artist, and 2020 Scholastic Gold Medalist. He’s been writing creatively since elementary school and continues to dedicate most of his free time to honing his craft.

 

The Book Thief and His Librarian Candlestick

With every step
The book thief
Takes, his sleeves
swing from side to
side like a saw
Moving through water.

The way he held the
Candlestick was like a
Cup of water—he did not
Want to spill a single drop.
The darkness could not
Touch the fire.

The candlelight’s interests
Grow when in close contact
With the library’s books.
The pathway is clear with
Visibility.
The Victorian literature

To the industrial revolution,
The books felt warm and
Began to melt like iron,
As the thief reaches for one.
The book thief’s candlestick
Fumbled, fell on his sleeves,

Burning him alive.
The morning after the librarian
Reclaimed his candlestick,
White, and charred black with
Ash and flesh.
The books untouched with a new

Fingerprint aromatic scent.

By Edis Rune

Biography:

Currently living in New York, Edis Rune was born in Kosovo and is of Montenegrin descent. He is a poet, novelist, short-story writer, and more.

invasive procedure

my mother takes my wrist
and pries it open. i ask her to be
gentle, amma or it’ll leave a scar
and she says she raised me
stronger than that. my wrist
unravels, an unwilling bloom.
she brings it to her lips and
blows away the dust-blunt skin.
i ask her to steer clear of my face
and she doesn’t. i ask if i can rub my eyes
and she says no. my wrist laid flat
on the table and she traces the veins
to their logical conclusion. i feel
her fingertip make landfall at the
crook of my elbow, the burn it leaves.
hold still, she warns me. acupuncture
with the blade of her nails. tell me where
it doesn’t hurt. cradling the bloody heaving
wound she buried alive like she never would
a lover. wincing at the pulse against her palms.
at its refusal to quiet down when she
bruises it. she tracks the arteries back to
the cut and tells me she doesn’t know
how to sew it shut. the thread wouldn’t hold.
i say it’s alright, i’ve never minded decay
at the seams, and at any rate i could use
a scar or two. she raised me stronger
than that.

By Sandhya Ganesan

Biography:

Sandhya Ganesan is a high school junior from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has been recognized nationally by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and she serves as a poetry reader for the Aurora Review. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys teaching coding and drinking jasmine tea.

IN THIS BODY, ON THIS DAY

I loved the girl hoping she would touch me/ and when that didn’t work/ I tied myself to a rock/ to a hard place/ I set myself on fire/ I became a comet/ became distant/ became dust in the mouths of everyone she will ever kiss//

I loved the girl hoping she would touch me/ and when that didn’t work/ I broke a beer bottle/ broke a nail/ broke a bone/ anything that would require some kind of suture/ some kind of coming back together//

I loved the girl hoping she would touch me/ and when that didn’t work/ I grew reckless/ unruly/ I held up a liquor store/ told my mother I didn’t believe in god/ I loved everything around me just to see if I could stomach it/ and then I did anything to stomach it//

I loved the girl hoping she would touch me/ and when that didn’t work/ I let her kill me/ let her chase me through the forest of my want/ pin me down/ pull my hair/ saw me off at the knees/ I put myself at the edge of every room/ and I let her bury me deep/ bury me dead/ I dangled my flesh off the bone/ just so she could have a taste/ just so she could spit on scripture//

I loved the girl hoping she would touch me/ and when that didn’t work/ I died hoping she would love me/ hoping she would hold me in her dirt mouth/ in her worm mouth/ so she could eat me up/ so she could witness my unbecoming

By Monericka Semeran

Biography:

Monericka is a young, emerging poet in the New England area. She is in undergrad studying International relations and History, hoping to one day change the world. She can be found listening to Mitski at midnight, reading, writing, or considering radical notions of girlhood and blackness in her spare time.

Slippages

my chest bears the fruits of an unwanted tree. and my days open into the silent arms of darkness. i count the number of trees: their falling leaves, like years of being left alone dancing to a song bereaved of harmonies. each day I slip into a flood of lances. i walk around with a conversation with the birds, with the breeze,with the young lady in abaya who says i am inaudible.  i was told depression is a blindfold to everything breathing. tonight i sit close to my bed. and i keep remembering the number of times I have drowned in my sleep. and why i should take the risk again tonight. my lover’s heart is a crossroad i do not know its navigation. i am lost in the labyrinth of giving your heart to someone else to lord. i am lost in the middle of a song. in a body where every scar has a story. in a body where freedom comes with a price, i am held hostage. how fast does one escape from memories carrying thorns? i name myself after everything that brings happiness but sometimes names don’t conform to the body of their bearer.

By Agunbiade Kehinde

Biography:

Agunbiade Kehinde is a young Nigerian poet and journalist. His works have featured and forthcoming in Vagabond City Lit, The Kalahari Review, The Pangolin Review, MusicInAfrica, Tucks Magazine amongst others. He studies English Literature at the department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University.

Egg

This is
an
Egg.

A boiled,
And
Peeled,

Cracked and
Eaten
Egg,

Is still
An
Egg.

The white
Symbolizes
God’s

Containment, of
The
Human

Race, and The Yolk,

a Celebration
Of
Fertility.

A bald
Eagle,
A

Gold eagle,
Inside
The

Egg is
Still
An

Eagle.
A Pregnancy,
An

Egg,
a Baby,
An

Egg.
A Hatching
Planet,

Inside it’s
Breathing
Core,

to live
On
The

Outside of
The
Belly,

it’s Shells,
Their
Mothers

arms,
Until It’s
Unborn.

Edis Rune

Biography:

Currently living in New York, Edis Rune was born in Kosovo and is of Montenegrin descent. He is a poet, novelist, short-story writer, and more.

Obituary for the Mundane

I am searching for a way to die that does not make use of fire or water
That does not make headline of my country ablaze or my children
in sinking boats
My people’s blood is famous for its quiet
How it can exist in our veins and in
our streets
And elicit no response either way
I am 22 now and always crying
On my walk home, I watch an animal on the road
fur flattened by traffic and it moves me to tears
This is not what I wanted when I prayed
to become softer
What I want to say is:
this world hurts me to extents unbearable
And the balm of love
Of my head in a man’s lap
Is a torn photograph is a
backwards glance
I am reaching for something that does not exist
This world hurts me
Lights my city on fire
Makes nostalgia of where the minarets once stood
I write down the better times so I do not forget
I take pictures of every unbroken thing
Before a father built gas masks out of plastic cups
Before our air became rationed by Sarin
Before prayers became a bargain with God
I map the concept of a nation without teeth
Of an ocean too kind to swallow bodies
I am reaching for something that does not exist.

By Amna Farooqi

Biography:

Amna Farooqi is a 23-year-old Pakistani writer in Canada. She is a recent Dean’s Honour List graduate of Justice, Political Philosophy and Law. Her work has been featured in Amnesty International, Collective Unrest, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and the McMaster Undergraduate Journal of Law and Politics. Amna can be reached at: amna.n.farooqi@gmail.com.