For Boys Who Struggle Against Stereotypes

they told me my body is a casket of dead emotions
where i must bury loud hearty laughter
& embalm my tears to lie in state,

they told me my body is a zuma of rough edges
where i must sharpen the blunt edges
of my penis & implode the pain as i crawl through ages,

they told me my body is an ambulance
that transport the dread of rape
& trauma of same to and fro my entry to earth,

they told me to drown my emotions in bottles of beer
workout until biceps cover my scars
& drink every bitter pill thrown at me by girls,

they told me my skin is the colour of darkness
darkness, the symbol of sadness
sadness, the end product of my existence,

they told me to man up;
i’ve been manning up since day cradle
learning the wisdom of the moon but forgetting to shine.

i have no memories of my boyhood –
i’ve always been a man with a lonely boy’s soul
walking on broken soles.

By Jaachi Anyatonwu

Swallow

Would you believe
how many years I

spent writing about
flowers trying to write

about the vulva the
clitoris mine or hers

or simply the as in
nonspecific and worshipable?

I told my friend I
wanted to write about

variegated monstera but
perhaps I intended to

write about photographs
of nude models.

On any given day I
might have walked through

a door set a bell ringing
bought the tallest one

in a rounded clay
pot the 20” x 24” black

and white still unframed.
I might have paid

clumsily prayed the
grime under my thumbnail

went unnoticed swallowed my
greed like a pearl a penny

a pear seed wondered how
many days and nights

it would hold a space
inside me.

By Caroline Taylor

Biography:

Caroline Taylor is currently an undergraduate at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. She is pursuing degrees in creative writing and communication. Her work has appeared previously in Windfall, Fiction Fogey, The Scarlet Leaf Review, and Storm Cellar.

Two Kinds of Idolatry

They crossed the border for an egg,
exodus over Red Sea frozen over
by night providence, chased by red sun
and ungodly idol, by fetter and fly
and famine, for
theirs is a coal
desert bearing the face of a hardened
heart, adulterous northern kingdom
of nuclear home and iron abode, death
camp wishbone hollow skin, caved in,
holding acidic emptiness―
but here,
they hear, is a place your ribs will not hurt
with every lent breath and here,
you do not meet your end cheated
by a man gorged on the world.
I am
sorry, brother, sister, that I have tried
to be like you: starving until summer
turns cold, bowing to false gods hungry
for offerings: your blood, your bones,
your womb and sinew and marrow and
mind
will never be enough. We are
not the same. We have both been starved
by society, both given the pits
of ourselves as insufficient sacrifices
to deities of death, but―
we are not the same.
I am my own fanatic, my own oppressor,
and you: dear brother, sister, 우리 가족:
you are eagle-winged wayfarers
walking a glass land bridge,
fleeing
your home for a perilous, invisible
promised land. There is freedom
on the other side, I promise you,
I promise me: freedom, like enjoying
an egg.

By Ashley Kim

Biography:

Ashley Kim is a 17-year-old high school senior from Southern California. Her work has been published in Overachiever and is forthcoming in The Bookends Review and Detester. She has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and Visions of Unity. Soli Deo gloria.

QASIDA FOR A VISION OF GRENADES THAT SHAKES LOOSE MY BODY

Of gliding birds in the sky, words out of print.
Kashmir, you taught me to say yes ma’am, no sir,
thank you, even to the middle school teacher
who cut my bangs against my will. Kashmir, your hands,
stroked calm around my bangs. There. There. There.

Your voice like a bitten tongue. Like a misspent grenade.
I breathed through this latest assault.
Kashmir, your swinging Chinar leaves of my childhood,
embers of my hair, even in the summer.

Today, I haul my baggage, press into nearly
empty streets of Florida. The Waffle House
down the road shadowed by Spanish Moss.

The noise of a brown pelican in the sky.

By Huma Sheikh

Stained Glass

shrouded within a shrine of hazy vinyl curtains

a grown man
soul painfully transparent
eyes clear with gossamer hope

shatter like two panes of glass

into tears.

“I don’t want to be on a ventilator.”

I sit on a stool and gather the glass
within my own eyes.

“I share your wish.
Let’s be hopeful together.”

clocks chant
alarms ring
machines chime
the virus crescendos into a chorus.

our wishes are broken by a cold metal blade.

a clear plastic tube grows opaque
stained by the fog of breath.

still

within these windowless walls

shared hopes are held softly between strangers
silently beautiful with translucent fragility

like daybreak

piercing through a parable of passion
etched on panes of glass.

By Yenting Chen

tethered

when the atoms speak to each other
they talk in mileage. holding hands
they whisper a story about stolen acorns
& the recluse sugar we wanted to eat.
i am touched by a long stick from the yard.
bamboo grows in my living room like television.
once an ad told me “i guarantee” & i thought
“i have never been so certain.”
seeing the atom like a ripe cherry
i tried to bite down hard. my tongue
is an ugly worm of need. my father’s atoms
are drunk & floating in amber. looking up
at an old over-used sky. i take mine
down to the laundry mat to clear them up.
fresh smell of “alright alright.” watching
the little spheres tumble in a machine.
i take my composition to the playground later
to research childhood. did i have one?
is it too late? sipping a pine tree.
sticky cones for dolls. the atoms are saying
“nevermind” & they are letting go.
i am troubled deeply by this. i take everything
as an omen because it is. a dead bird is always
a sign of a car crash or a broken heart.
you were the one who told me that sometimes
atoms link up together. hold tight.
talk & talk for hours. for every scientist
there is a lover painted on a shower curtain.
i tell my atoms to kiss again.
spend all night at the cutting board
trying to slice on in half. i don’t want
destruction i just want to see inside.
but maybe inspection is a form of destruction.
my atoms are all pink. well, not all.
one is lavender & one is bruise-blue.
here let me show you them. no microscope needed.
plug your ears & your eyes.
yes, there they are.

By Robin Gow

7th & Shatto

Homeless man on meth
Makes a stage out of a
Thrown-out -blue mattress
He starts to speak in tongues
As rats scurry from underneath
Running toward a tree
The tree where a Gangbanger sits for shade
His face tattoo still peeling
The sun is relentless
Shining directly on our wounds
And reflecting off the windshield of
An unmarked police car
circling the block over and over
Unsure of who to arrest first
Then fracturing silence with a siren
Burst and startling the man
Who replaced water with whiskey
Speaking between gurgles
His golden tin beer can is crushed
Then kicked under a car
Where a young girl is seated
Lighting a joint, above the smoke
Two girls on a second floor
Fire escape are scanning the street
Looking for their mother
And waiting to be fed

By Pablo Robles

Daddy Fell

My daddy’s feet were—
Silver horseshoes
Brass buckles
Ivory tusks in Africa,

where the Buffalo watches. And waits,
wearing
thick horns like a crown on
his upturned head.

Ever watching, waiting, my daddy stopped—and then—fell proud onto

the pavement, prickled like the gooseflesh of
his great-grandmother, bent over the bed, as some worthless dollar of a man

crowned her with his shame.
She is

my daddy as he falls
into the hell after this one where
none of it hurts any more
than anything else hurts.

They bend and watch his carcass, which has been his carcass now for eight whole minutes—
and they prod his shell—his hard-honed ivory shell—
and say, “he’s gone,” and “no pulse,” and “Fuck!”

The fire in his back was like

the stiff palm of her master after
a difficult day or

the quiet tock of an empty house—
nothing to eat and
a mother who lived in a dream. Not this one where

my daddy’s in a coffin but
it’s closed because
we cannot bear to see
the gooseflesh on his horns
or the blood on his crown;
the master with whips for hands,
counting down the licks until
some other place swallows this one.

I will not look at his calloused hands,
or dry the tears from his white-whiskered cheeks.

I will meet him: somewhere worse than here.

By Tayana T. Martin

Biography:

Tayana Martin lives in Brooklyn, NY. She is a political organizer and advocate for racial justice. She believes in the power of people of color and the stories they carry with them.

Curfew

Where were you during the lockdown
When the black bird’s wings were broken
Your sisters and brothers were there
But you said race wasn’t spoken

Ghosts

Are you still here?

Protecting me in the night
Holding me as you did in your arms
Cradling my head
Breathing your dream of love, adventure
and freedom into my soul.

Are you still here?

As I fall to my knees begging God
for the fantasy of a man of your dreams
A warrior to save me from the hopelessness
of black chains, the world on my shoulders
A woman to mind all the pain of her children,
their children and no one to mind hers.

Are you still here?

When I rock myself to sleep,
hoping to never wake.
to the monotony of achievement
Pride of a beautiful child, successful career
Impeccable house in the appropriate zip code
Suitable car and designer dog.

Are you still here?

Watching the world collapse
around your dreams
Oh sprit, my guardian,
guide me to my purpose, my dream
Show me the way to unequivocal love.

By Nichol Ronée Bourdeaux