confession

Christ I will come out and admit that
I want to be one of those girls that
adults have warned me never to be, I

Love their emaciated look and the clever ways they
hide their loathing of the world with fresh lipstick
and fervent clouds of cigarette smoke and I can

Hear them laughing collectively, a beautiful chorus of
careless mirth when some old person asks them shouldn’t
you be in school and they smile red lips short shorts and

Stopping cars on highways to see if
they can get a ride and sell some of their beauty
for a little fun you see they had no choice you

See their lives may have been predestined for this &
I used to view those girls who seduced old men for
money in contempt but now I see that when you have

Some beauty the world pretends to be a little kinder &
I realize I’m no better than them worse I want to
be like them, I want to wring out every reward my face &

Body brings me like a sodden sponge, I want to feel the
hungry stares of men and be a manic pixie dream girl for
bored housewives sick of the sexless years of their marriages &

I want this all because I feel now that I’m like a doll
created to be porcelain and sleek haired and expensive on the
shelf but even those perfect dolls are bought & worn down

& destroyed eventually.

By Rooney Kim

Biography:

Rooney Kim (she/her) is a high school senior based in New York City. Her writing mainly focuses on themes of mental illness, queer identity, and love. She has attended the Iowa Young Writers Studio and the Common Young Writers Workshop, among others. She only writes at 3am with music and a cup of coffee. Please send help. She is chaotic.

Cat’s Cradle

Fingers tug loops of yarn
middle fingers graze palms
starting this Cat’s Cradle
dance inside twine pulled tight
between dry space of hands.

Two partners play this game
for children, one not yet
resurrected like the
origami box, the
fortune teller, card games.

I imagine you and
my young son sitting next
to one another, hands
bound together in play.
Do these strings reach across

generations? Does thread
pull and stretch, connecting
my son’s new words to the
words you are forgetting?
As intermittent pulls

into my boy’s brain, does
it loosen like mud from
yours? Fingers pinch across
diamonds, circle muscle.
Should I wish my son mute

and keep your stories tied
safely inside you for
a few more day, months, years?
Can my son’s words wait? When
pinkies finally cross

and the bridge of hands turn
upside down, pulling strings
tight, to circle and leap
cuffing our hands, leaving
behind this mess of worry.

By Noriko Nakada

Biography:

Noriko Nakada is a multi-racial Asian American who creates fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art to capture the stories she has been told not to talk about. She is the author of the Through Eyes Like Mine memoir series. Excerpts, essays, and poetry have been published in The Rising Phoenix Review, Hippocampus, Catapult, Linden Ave, and elsewhere.

the girls

The girls are weeping in their rooms again
and they’re posting pictures of themselves with wet
mascara running over their childish cheeks
next to a journal covered in writing and under the
picture are twenty comments from strangers
“thats so me” “thats me” “thats definitely me” “lmao”

The girls are pinching their thighs again
watching cellulite rise and their chests tighten
Can you burn calories if you cry hard enough?
Oh manifest those chopstick legs darling, listen
to subliminals on youtube, until you’re able to
look in the mirror without having a panic attack

The girls are skipping their meals again
because hunger means hard won beauty,
you’re following Bella Hadid’s diet, cup
of water in the morning, and half an almond
should tide you over for the day. Cry
into a tub of Halo Top if you must, but
be sure to throw it back up.

The girls are hating themselves again
every inch of skin is not smooth enough,
nothing they say is smart or witty enough,
want to ball yourself up like a miserable
mistake of a poem and hurl yourself into
the trash can, oh but darling you are only
a first draft, but most never make it to
revision.

By Rooney Kim

Biography:

Rooney Kim (she/her) is a high school senior based in New York City. Her writing mainly focuses on themes of mental illness, queer identity, and love. She has attended the Iowa Young Writers Studio and the Common Young Writers Workshop, among others. She only writes at 3am with music and a cup of coffee. Please send help. She is chaotic.

ghazal for asian americans

laid transcontinental railways crouched as denied americans
skin reeks of manure from stables where resided americans

raised to bow or pagmamano our elders not knock
them down like mahjong from behind in america

disease helixes fevered globe gagging gasps
a virus isn’t chinese asian or mine america

no yellow bellies we stand bruised indigo to stop
hiss on spider silk hair as slanted eyes blind america

i was a dear little girl white woman clutched her child’s
hand when in my brown face she couldn’t find america

By Karina Fantillo

Mending

I am sewing up a pair of old blue jeans.
The silver flash of the needle is like a fish,
swimming through riffles of worn white thread.
It swims back and forth across the sea-cave of the small tear:
Through, across, up. Through, across, up.
the 1-2-3, 1-2-3 rhythm of a silent waltz.

Unbidden,
a thought comes to mind.

I am here to mend small things.

I am here to feed the bees that land on the windowsill occasionally.
to mix tap water and plain sugar
into a whitish syrup that allows them to continue their journey.
I am here to open the window, when they are ready to fly again.

I am here to smile at babies in grocery stores,
and here to smile at parents with full arms and tired children.
I am here to stand, sometimes, in the woods and hear the silence.

I have a body to lift and to carry what is needed to wherever it is needed.
I have a mind that can see what needs to be done.
Sometimes, I think I can see the truth that this is
more than enough.  

By Jane Elizabeth Yarnell

Kitchen Love

I wish you a kitchen kind of love.
I wish you love that lingers, just a moment more —
love that makes another cup of tea as cover for five more minutes of chat.

I wish you love that sits on counters, dangles feet
and talks about everything and nothing while the room fills
with carmel sugar.

I wish you the warmth of the oven while
rain lashes the windows.
I wish you the kind of love
that feeds you.

I wish you a love deep enough for creation.

By Jane Elizabeth Yarnell

What the lemon tree taught me

In the spring,
when southern humid air
sticks to the window and skin.
her garden,
when eyes wide follow the flight of honey bees.
No need for sickle,
Patient grandmother shakes
And the branches don’t know the difference
Between her arms and heavy winds

A factory line of lemons
and it was in my best interest
to warn little brother
Don’t let them fall, don’t let them bruise

Grandmother’s calm nature
Do not be afraid of the soil
you were created from clay

I close my eyes
to file this lesson away-
to teach my own child one day, that-
Fingers may twitch,
Feed them into the earth,
Return to your Creator.

Even in the roughest of times,
bounty.

– Alhamdulillah

By Rima Alsayed