P(art) of the Soul is The Global Youth Review's inaugural issue, whose structure is based off of the Tripartite Soul and consists of three chapters: 1) logos, 2) thymos, and 3) eros. We warmly welcome you into a space filled with talented creatives hailing from over 20 countries, all united in their efforts to express through literature various emotions, ideas, and thoughts. Designed by Sena Chang
Santal.
SANTAL MAGAZINE
OCT 2018
Issue to
YOUTH
By JULIANA KOZOSKI
ISSUE I
-I-
-ONE-
-
THE GLOBAL YOUTH REVIEW
( P ) A R T O F T H E
S O U L
ISSUE I 2020 Y.
T H E G L O B A L Y O U T H
R E V I E W
EDITORIAL BOARD
FOUNDER:
Sena Chang
CO-FOUNDERS:
Talha Hasan
Helena V.
Sanjana Rohra
CONTRIBUTORS
Sulola Imran Abiola
Vinicius Amano
Abdulmueed Balogun
Dimitar Belchev
Mario Calvo
Arisa Chattasa
Sarah Chaudhry
Jake Colling
Rodrigo Curi
Jose Da Rocha
Shaunak De
Charles Deluvio
Yang Deng
Bruno Dias
David East
Hasin Farhan
Kamil Feczko
Victor Forgacs
Kath G
Mohammad Gh
Joshua Hoehne
Hwoman
Richard James
Alexander Jawfox
Jr Korpa
Juliana Kozoski
Andraz Lazic
Sunny Liu
Jonathan Marchal
Artem Maltsev
Lorna McBain
Nathan McDine
Rosalind Moran
Tim B. Motivv
Will Moyer
Jyotsna Nair
Charles Nnanna
Mike Norris
Crossing the Ocean
Mary Oloumi
Jokob Owens
Cristian Palmer
Ashley Pearson
Daniele Pelusi
Cindy Phan
Hanna Postova
Laoise Ní Raghallaigh
Dmitry Ratushny
Tom Robertson
A.R. Salandy
Ilya Shishikhin
Kelly Sikkema
Alex Smith
Samuel Sng
Eduardo Soares
Hennie Stander
Mr TT
Nota Vandal
Mikita Yo
For advertising enquires contact: theglobalyouthreview@gmail.com
Copyright by The Global Youth Review
Cover Image: Unsplash
Magazine Designer: Sena Chang
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sel f-expression
2
0
CHAPTERS
Table of contents and a letter
from the founder --
1
INTRODUCTION
The Rationale: REASON--
2
LOGOS
The Spirited: HONOR--
3
THYMOS
The Appetite: DESIRE--
4
EROS
Featured contributors and
acknowledgements --
5
CLOSURE
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C O N T E N T S
P. 20
(P)ART OF —
— the soul
Photography—Cindy Phan, Bellevue Botanical
Garden
P. 6
On Self-Expression—
Sena Chang
P. 19
spirited cloth —
Sarah Chaudhry
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P. 20
P. 28
P. 24
i am tired —
Kath G
Keeping My Wits About
Me—
Rosalind Moran
P. 34
Censored in the
Supermarket—
Lorna McBain
GYR
NO. I
Untitled —
Alexander Jawfox
P. 36
P. 48
P. 42
Stork —
Ashley Pearson
Into Paradise —
Crossing the Ocean
Power —
A.R. Salandy
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Self-Expression
Sena C. as Founder
By NOTA VANDAL
Throughout
human history, populations
have been marginalized, oppressed, and
chained from embracing their true identities.
These themes seem to persist in modern society,
with the unfortunate instances of police brutality making
headlines these past months and trends such as the "fox eye"
gaining traction in the media. Taking these happenings into
mind whilst editing, creating, and revising, our editors have worked
tirelessly to capture the essence of this very idea—one of a perpetual
dance between a struggle and embrace of self-expression. Issue I of The
Global Youth Review has prompted writers to take these ideas in mind
when creating and to flesh out a story of one's struggles, joys, and victories
with self-expression, as well as find their inner voice—itself a gateway
into one's true identity. Without further ado, I present to you issue
one of The Global Youth Review, a magazine dedicated to showcasing
the voices of the youth. With over 20 countries represented and
diverse voices speaking on behalf of the underrepresented
and unprivileged, P(art) of The Soul is an issue that
is unforgettable, touching, and insightful, but
ultimately, one that captures the essence
of what it means to express.
Sena
BMDDIGITAL.COM
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Connect on
Social —
media
By MR TT
#GLOBALYOUTHREVIEW
@GlobalYouthRev
#GLOBALYOUTHREVIEW
@theglobalyouthreview
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CHAPTER
logic
LOGOS
"The fact that logic cannot satisfy
us awakens an almost insatiable
hunger for the irrational."
A. N. Wilson
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By VINICIUS AMANO
By DIMITAR BELCHEV
PROSE
INSTANCES
IN MIRRORS
"I could invent a new self, one who
wasn’t pre-stencilled by family or
friends or shop assistants who knew
my face. And I did."
By Laoise Ní Raghallaigh
I
have a team of women to keep me alive and healthy and looking
altogether well. I met my dermatologist about four years ago, when
my sister began seeing her. I watched as her skin lost its redness
and became smooth again, like a freshly resurfaced road. Months
later when my own skin started to rebel against me, I went to the same little office
in Woodquay, and within three months the worst of it was gone. My optician flips
lenses and switches and tells me how she remembers the first time I came in to see
her when I was eight, claiming triple vision. My doctor, who takes my bloods, and
my consultant who analyses my bloods and prescribes me medication. There’s my
dietician, who probes me about my portion sizes and exercise regimes. There’s my
mother, who pays for almost all of it, and my sister, who drives me to all the various
appointments when my mother’s busy.
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I
F A C E
M
Y
S E L F
. . .
I CAN’T EXPLAIN MYSELF,
BECAUSE I AM NOT MYSELF,
YOU SEE?
Lewis Carroll
By KELLY SIKKEMA
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BMDDIGITAL.COM
By RICHARD JAIMES
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PROSE
I
t’s only now, when
I have medical
professionals on
all levels looking
after me, when every step has been
taken after all these years, that I’ve
finally begun to feel like it’s doing
something. Maybe it’s a reflection on
myself, that I need someone to keep
an eye on every errant body part.
It has long been instilled in
me by numerous sources -
mostly the girls I saw around
me - that my body was not
what it was supposed to be,
neither inside nor out. For
years I half-heartedly tried
this diet, then that. I dragged
myself to the gym after
school, I drank innumerable
litres of water. My heart
wasn’t in the effort to change,
but it sank heavier all the time
when it became clear that it
wasn’t working. In around
all this was secret trouble.
Undiagnosed hormonal
issues, potential infertility
looming. I put it to the back
of my mind, and there it
stayed. Even when there were
seventeen months between
periods. I’d researched it,
vaguely. I had a deeper voice
than my friends in school,
and between that, my volatile
skin, weight retention and
excessive hair, I concluded
that I had polycystic ovaries.
I mentioned it to my mother;
she said we’d keep an eye on
it. I did blood tests at the local
GP’s office in early 2016, which
came back normal. Two years
later I finished secondary
school, having had four
periods since I’d first walked
through the glass front doors.
We were driving somewhere in July
when my mother suggested that we
try going to the doctor’s again. It’d
be good to get this sorted before you
start college, she said. I agreed. We
made an appointment again with the
local GP, who was a new lady. She
had the gentlest voice of anyone I’d
met, and cool hands, and she spoke
to me like I was an equal rather
than a child. It looks like polycystic
ovarian syndrome, she told me.
Or you could call it by its catchy
initialism, PCOS. Good to know that
my internet diagnosis was accurate.
We did more tests - hormone tests,
blood tests - and the little plastic
tubes of red were sent off, with
By KAMIL FECZKO
‘‘ We did more tests...and
the little plastic tubes of
red were sent off, with all
my hopes riding on them.’’
all my hopes riding on them. The
diagnosis came soon afterwards,
and I was referred forevermore to
a well-respected endocrinologist.
I was given a prescription and a
dietician’s appointment, and my new
life as a university student began.
It wasn’t drastically different,
medically speaking. I had to
remember to take the bitter white
pills with my meals, along with
vitamin B supplements and vitamin
D in my water. I had to keep a food
diary. I had to log every bit of exercise
I did, so that I wouldn’t end up looking
like a fool trying to remember it all
in my appointments with Elaine (the
dietician). My portions were difficult
to manage. I was supposed
to eat granola and yoghurt
for breakfast; for lunch, at
least two eggs on bread, or
two chicken breasts, or ham
and cheese. Some kind of
large protein for dinner. Cut
back on fruit, double up on
vegetable snacks. She was
very specific, in fairness to
her. No more than seven
blueberries in the granola,
and a strictly measured
portion of any carbohydrate.
Twenty-seven grams of white
rice, thirty-five of pasta. I hit
a little snag very early on;
my food intake had to go up
by a significant amount, but
my prescribed medication
has the unfortunate side
effect of being an appetite
suppressant. I often went
for an entire day without
eating anything, because I
couldn’t stomach it. These
days I kept from Elaine;
she probably wouldn’t have
approved. My mother would
ring me in the evenings and
ask if I’d eaten enough that
day, and the answering sigh
when I said no, probably
not, grew louder all the time.
The consultant, when I
saw her in January, was
immaculately dressed and
her office had doors which
went from floor to ceiling. Between
snippets of medical jargon and
terminologies she asked me about
my college life, my aspirations, my
friends, what I thought about the
place I was living in. My answers
for these were easily spoken, having
been said a thousand times before.
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PROSE
By RODRIGO CURI
When you’re eighteen all people
want to know is what you think of
college. I didn’t expect my doctors to
be any different.
‘‘ It was a dash of water to the
face, sobering and electric. A
failing on my behalf to perform
basic bodily functions.’’
Then she moved on to discussing
solely my biology, and there were
eight seconds in which I was gripped
with some unspeakable fear, which
shot down to my marrow. At zero: my
consultant said that PCOS would lead
to infertility if left untreated. It was a
dash of water to the face, sobering
and electric. A failing on my behalf
to perform basic bodily functions.
At eight: she reassured me that my
case had been caught relatively early
on, and it was, in all likelihood, going
to be absolutely fine, provided I did
what I was told.
In the car on the way home I couldn’t
speak. I had never felt anything like
those eight seconds. It was visceral,
like being disembowelled. I have
always wanted to have children,
but I didn’t think that it would feel
like that, to have one option
potentially taken away. The
one coherent thought in my
head, for the hour’s drive,
was of the note in my phone.
The note I began when I was
fourteen, the note that has
been saved and uploaded
and downloaded again with
every new phone since then.
Eighteen words - eighteen
names, for my children.
What would happen to those names?
Would I throw them away on my
children of ink and plasma, the
children I wrote into existence?
It was an absurd
thought; mine is, by
all accounts, a happy
tale. It has a medical
happy ending, at any
rate, and I don’t take
that for granted.
I used to feel like
parts of me were
being stripped away.
Maybe that’s still true.
By JR KORPA
But they are parts I have no use for,
parts I would rather be without, even
if I don’t know exactly what they are.
I am being distilled with every ounce
lost and every centimetre shaved off
my hips. My orange pants no longer
fit me, and the black floral dress is
too loose across the chest. But I can
wear the white blouse that belonged
to my mother, which I had to put
away into a vacuum pack when I was
fifteen. I could take in the trousers;
I am very fond of the orange ones, it
must be said. A whole new wardrobe
of possibilities lies open to me now.
I can revert to the fashion choices
of four or five or more years ago,
embrace myself as I was in my
angriest and most frustrated time.
That girl is something of a stranger
to me now, but I could get to know
BMDDIGITAL.COM
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PROSE
By JOSE DA ROCHA
her again, through the clothes she
wore.
Although maybe the past is better
left undisturbed. I never liked the
person I was during secondary
school. She had a questionable taste
in clothes, music and friends, and
was altogether volatile and far too
sensitive for her own good. It’s only
in coming out the other side, as it
were, that I can recognise how things
were. My Snapchat memories show
me photos of a girl whose skin looks
swollen, turgid like an overwatered
plant. Her eyelashes are long;
obscenely long, my sister says, but
the eyes look a blink away from tears.
I can feel her weariness through the
screen.
There was a part of me for a long
time which believed that my life
would be better, in all ways, if I
was thinner. I would be confident,
I would be desirable, I would no
longer worry about things because
I would have far less to worry about.
And I am more confident now. But
the source of this confidence is a bit
of a mystery; it has very little to do
with my measurements. A lot of the
time I don’t think about it. Strange
now that I’ve ‘done it’, per se, that
I’m a standard size 12, that I don’t
care at all. Well, not at all, but far less
than I thought I would. When I went
up to a size 14 it was the worst thing
in the world. When I went up to a 16
it was worse again. Both my sisters
have always been slim - slimmer
than me, at any rate, which was not
difficult. Neither of them was a size
14. This meant the end of hand-medowns
and signalled the new era of
hand-me-ups. My sister, who is four
years older than me, got my clothes
when I outgrew them. I thought it
was funny, and then I didn’t.
My diagnosis was a relief; it wasn’t
just me and my terrible eating habits.
It was my hormones. It was beyond
my control. There was something
larger and more menacing afoot
than the fact that I ate a frankly
ludicrous amount of pasta. Now I
can’t really eat pasta at all, which is
perhaps one of the greatest tragedies
of my life. I have no appetite
anymore. There’s also the danger
that anything I eat, which may have
previously had no effect at all, will
now trigger a migraine or nausea
or both. I’ve never, luckily, been
prone to migraines, but I am now.
The nausea has gone down since I’ve
gone off the pill, but the migraines
haven’t gone anywhere. Nobody,
not the doctor, not the consultant,
not the dermatologist (although that
would have been a very long shot)
has anything helpful to say about it.
It’s just a thing that happens to some
people, said the consultant when
I told her, and the medication can
exacerbate it. You’ll need to watch
out for triggers. Except that I haven’t
the slightest notion of what triggers
them. Maybe I should hire somebody
to just sit and observe me for days on
end, come to me at the end of a week
with a notepad of comments and all
my problems will be solved. Until
then, it’s Minesweeper.
Medicated weight loss is a strange
and uncomfortable thing. Since I
began taking Metformin I’ve lost
over two stone. I fit into size 12 jeans
again, which I absently thought
would never happen. I probably have
to buy a load of new bras. Nearly
every tweak to my body has been
for mechanical reasons. I got braces
because my adult eye teeth grew in
behind my front teeth, and I was
going to end up with no canines
at all if nothing was done. I'm on
medication that causes me to lose
weight because its main function is to
lower the risk of developing type two
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BMDDIGITAL.COM
By SUNNY LIU
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PROSE
d
iabetes, and I have a medical condition which means I am four
times more likely to develop it. I am doing this because I want to
have healthy pregnancies and healthy children, at some point.
Living through the boom of body positivity has made it difficult to
remember that I am not losing weight for cosmetic purposes. It almost feels like a
betrayal to feel happy about the weight coming off. Like I'm somehow selling out
because my body is shrinking. It’s a hard thing to bear in mind. I was ashamed of
my body before, I admit. I didn’t take care of it, and I didn’t enjoy dressing in nice
clothes or giving anyone any reason whatsoever for their eyes to linger on me. But
I came to accept it. It was like a mantra, every morning while I got ready for school:
my body does not have to be beautiful. It houses me and carries me from place to
place. And that was good enough.
The doctor’s appointments forced me to come back to awareness, to be cognizant
of the body that held me. I couldn’t just be a floating mind; I had to take care of my
organs, my skin, my teeth. If I wanted a normal life then I had to care. It was hard
to reconcile with, that constant awareness of my body and what I did with it. In
a time where I was frequently losing my temper, feeling trapped and lashing out,
the last thing I wanted to be was aware. But in time it was less cloying. With the
ending of secondary school and exams, it was college in my mind, and college only.
September, when I would be moving across the country to Galway, that colourful,
salt-sprayed city clinging to the rocks. I could invent a new self, one who wasn’t
pre-stencilled by family or friends or shop assistants who knew my face. And I did. I
became someone else, someone lighter. I went to class, I hung out with new friends
who were smart and bookish and who genuinely liked me, rather than just being
stuck with me. I don’t know that I had ever fully realised just how thrown together
we were in school. The girls there had little, if anything, in common with me, and
in my snobbery, I didn’t care too much to find out much more about them. They
thought me strange, I suppose, and I was fine with that. But university was a new
world. I had been a big fish in a decidedly small pond back in Meath; here, I was a
sprat, milling around with all the other sprats. And it was wonderful.
I’m glad that there was such a leap from my secondary school life to my college life.
A cross-country move and diagnosis will do that to a person. It was good to see
a difference in how I was outwardly, and not just be overwhelmed by the seismic
rupture I felt inside myself. Everything changed within the space of a few weeks;
everything I thought was permanent and unchangeable revealed itself to be just
as passing as the rest of it, and there was suddenly nothing familiar in sight. New
wardrobe, new room, new school, new friends. New me. In the beginning I shed
weight like a snake shedding its skin, and my reflection looked wholly different
to what I’d become accustomed to seeing. It was how an eighteen-year-old was
supposed to appear: I looked fresh. My eyes were clear and alert, and I thought
maybe, maybe, I could finally embrace my body instead of pretending it didn’t exist.
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E
Enigma
By Charles Nnanna
G
Is a fact more unsettling than that the seed
must first die to become tree?
That the birds nesting under it are oblivious
of the innocent little grain that died?
What paradox is bitter as this:
that the chick in order to live would have to break
the egg, the generous house
that housed it when it had no legs to kick? Or
N
that the woman must break in her own blood
so she'd hear the cry of a joy indescribable?
Truly a heart can’t know joy unless it's broken,
just as a dream can’t know reality
until it breaks many a bitter sweat.
M
I
look at the world through
a broken lens, not a magnifying glass. Helps
me see myself as I really am before the mirror. A
broken being
in need of God's tool box. / And sometimes, verily,
a thing has to be made very dirty before finally it
becomes clean. The world, perhaps, is
just a pile of mud every dreamer must first climb
on before ascendency.
BMDDIGITAL.COM
Enigma
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spirited
cloth
Sarah
Chaudhry
They decry at my hijab and see a threat
I look at my hijab and see pride
The hijab is a statement, not one of oppression
or feminism
But a statement of choice
The hijab is my lifestyle, a silent gesture that
spirited cloth
speaks enormous volumes
I am bound to my religion like I am bound to the
black soil and the blue sky
The hijab is not a mystery, not something arcane
The hijab is eloquent, a source of pride and
power.
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By MILAD FAKURIAN
BMDDIGITAL.COM
Poetry
Keepin g
My Wits
ABOUT ME
By ROSALIND MORAN
By MIKE NORRIS
POETRY
I
like to keep my wits about
me:
yapping at novelty, helping
me see.
They run free through the house,
scratching floorboards, doors –
and though I keep them close
when we go outside, I make sure to
walk them on gold leashes, proudly;
and let them run wild in empty woods…
I like to keep my wits about me.
A tangle of leashes, wrists bruised red;
a mongrel pack, all shapes and sizes;
snarling and arguing, sniffing out answers.
I encourage nosiness, their taste for blood.
Dragging the scarlet of falsehood fox
along the ground to train them in tracking…
Unpack strawman arguments; scatter them
wide.
I like to keep my wits about me.
Gnawing on bones and peeing on newspapers;
making them play ball in fields of thought
though caring little whether the ball comes
back…
The chase is what counts. The hunt; the trail;
the accurate sniff and wagging tail at the
smell of
a lie; a scare campaign; a slogan or a logical
fallacy.
…My pack is young, but learning quickly.
I like to keep my wits about me –
though many question if this is sage…
In a time when words so often bite their
masters
is it wise to hone wits – and to rarely tell
them off
or nurture mongrel thoughts yet to debut
in public?
…And if I must own wits, couldn’t I at least
make them
bland yet fashionable? …Does IKEA massproduce
a catalogue for ideas? I’d like to sink my
teeth into it!
I like to keep my wits about me
in a time when we’re asked to keep them
in cages,
and some dump them quietly on the side
of the road
before starting their office job. Well – it
may be easier
to bury opinions, to avoid debate, to keep
the peace;
but when debate becomes hate and hisses
at your door
you will want your wits – eyes bright, ears
pricked –
ready to be set on the tongues of one’s
enemies.
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By CINDY PHAN
CHAPTER
emotion
THYMOS
"To express the emotions of life is to
live. To express the life of emotions
is to make art."
Jane Heap
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POETRY
i am
tired
By KATH G
BMDDIGITAL.COM
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By MARIO CALVO
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POETRY
By DANIELE PELUSI
BRAIN
ROT
By ALEX SMITH
C
rusty
lids crest the sagittal hurting
Grey weeps bleak come daylight
flirting
Professionally scribbled pages unintelligible
to me
Sat for wrong reasons underneath the Bo Tree
Gummy fruit lips split cranberry jus
Inkwell spill made the datum confused
Low battery teaspoon stained in the sink
Nothing done day night in a blink
Flesh grips flesh 'til the flesh is torn awaystaying
in bed 'til I gotta start the day
Julienne talk leaves ribbons of my rye
Grain turns to rot, phrenovoid like Dalai
BMDDIGITAL.COM
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PHOTOGRAPHY
By HENNIE STANDER
By WILL MOYER
By TOM ROBERTSON
By YANG DENG
By ILYA SHISHIKHIN
By BRUNO DIAS
By MARY OLOUMI
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POETRY
C E N S O R E D
SUPER
MARKET
IN THE
Stemming from the ideas of exhaustion
battling political and social problems,
Lorna McBain artfully encapsulates these
emotions in "Censored in the Supermarket".
By LORNA MCBAIN
E
mpty aisles in a Supermarket at night
Brash lights, hollow eyes, I’m exhausted too.
Filled with freezing air that chills my bones
And muted silence
Feels like communicating with you.
I’m speaking with a fist in my mouth
Censoring the words, I mutter
That I would rather shout.
No use, we are silenced now.
Why does no one listen to what I have to say
They’re deaf! Deaf I tell you
Deaf to the ideas I express.
I’ll slip my neck into the noose of your hands
And wait for you to let go
So I can attempt to speak again.
But in the meantime, I’ll hang here,
Silenced by your ignorance
Sickened by your fear.
BMDDIGITAL.COM
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By YOUSSEF NADDAM
P OETRY
Death happens. / And
it's usually no question of how, but when. A when
that's independent of age & choice.
The why question has long
become a cup from which
no one drinks — like it contains the water of
insanity. / It could be a stone too heavy for
anyone
living
to roll away. / Perhaps those who've
spent their lives trying to roll it have successfully
lived their lives rolling
the stone
that blocked their tombs. Death found them before
I
immediately
collapsed on my knees while carrying a
heavy heart on married palms facing the heavens.
I
immediately
wrote this poem without bearing any pen to
paint my anguish. / It's a prayer, it's a supplication.
Lord, I haven't asked the what or the where question,
'cause many things could
end a man, and the globe
is just too big a place to choose the perfect where, / or
perhaps too small that the perfect where becomes
overcrowded with grief. But
I STILL
IN
BELIEVE
miracles
the answer came. So
the question of why is no question at all. / Yet
something hits differently when I see the flier
of a life demarcated from death by
only a thread. One could say everyone
By CHARLES NNANNA
a life of no more than thirty-seven lies in the hospital,
looking death in the eye. Please stretch your arm
and lift
him from his sinking blue bed. / I still believe
in miracles.
is only a step away from oblivion in many different ways,
but tonight I saw a flier that bled my heart. A young
life lying on a blue bed just little above a sinking ground.
Words read that he could finally sink
without an urgent two million naira deposit so
his saviours in white coat could do their saving.
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POETRY
QUESTIONS
THAT LEAD TO
nothing
By HWOMAN
By ARTEM MALTSEV
«Her pain is mine; my pain is hers.»
NDoor knocks
Teardrops
Visualizing buried circles that once
were close to her heart
But circles can no longer be lines
Do you remember the first time your eyes caught the
sea?
Do you remember when you breastfed your firstborn
child and named him happiness
It’s hard to close your eyes every night thinking you
have been abandoned when it’s just bedtime
Tired of being in the same places
Tired of seeing the same faces
Home used to be in every room
But now home can barely be felt in my mother’s
arms
Every time her arms open up and I get closer
A sound a breath speaks up
A very loud and strange voice pushes me away
I think this is not my day
But the days have passed along
It’s been months it’s been years
And I’m still falling into my own tears
Tears of fear
Tears of confusion
You know what
Sometimes I think this may just be an illusion
I am no longer welcomed in smiles
I am no longer seen in their eyes
I am no longer mentioned in their hearts
I am no longer that piece of paper that flew across
the sky
A piece of paper that wanted to deliver the truth on
every roof
Now they call me weakness under their night covers
Now they call me sorrow but only when they don’t
need to borrow
My pencil has been borrowed just enough
And I have never received it back just like how it
looked like when it left my body
My pencil always returns broken
It’s like throwing a crystal on the floor
It’s never broken into a piece or two
It’s always broken into thousands and billions of
pieces
I feel like my heart is a crystal
A crystal that can no longer be one
My crystals now are circles
Circles that can no longer be lines
Opening the windows was my decision
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POETRY
Hw0man wrote this poem in
2019 about the connection of
feelings between her and her
grandmother. Both her and
her grandma feel some type of
confusion with what they are
around —the people, the energy,
and events as well.
I thought it’s a way out
I needed light inside my darkroom
I needed to breath
But once you open up a window
The wind will be welcomed
Your crystals will break into pieces
And your heart will no longer be one
You ask people for directions
They lead you to questions
Questions that don’t even make no sense
Questions that lead you to unexpected pain
Tell me how do you feel again?
I heard one plus one equals none
I never understood this until he was gone
Question
What’s the reason behind our existence?
We are born to build to love and create
But instead, we kill we burn, and hate
Comma
My scars are opening-up
Comma
The paint inside me is turning into blood
Question
is this ever gonna stop?
Comma
The hardest loss is losing the memory of his
existence when he still exists
And no this is not some ex’s bullshit
This is home
Home is a cup, my body is water
He taught me how to merge green and blue we called
it “our land”.
My home is a land,
And home is not a home when he’s not there.
A land is not a land when he’s not there.
Jumping from a couch to another, we called
ourselves heroes.
We let our fingers dance through the strings of the
guitar.
We saw art in every move and touch, we sketched it
on papers.
A combination of sweet and sour.
The white bed burns, walking hurts.
Teardrops run down from his big brown eyes every
time he feels us around.
Coma is my brother’s new best friend.
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By DAVID EAST
POETRY
We've
WCOME THIS FAR
By ABDULMUEED BALOGUN
We've come this far, trudging this sodded land,
that renders the seeds of efforts dormant, in its
soil.
The cypress of dreams became blighted:
when planted in its heart---
and budded caustic fruits.
This land is a dimmer, it dims the glow of smile
shimmering on our faces.
We've come this far,
treading the road of hope, but, our journey seems
like an unending blues:
our bones are now rusty and fractured,
our hopes are dwindling into dust,
our faces are powdered with the kohl of grief.
We've come this far,
hoping to find a light gleaming at the end of our
journey, but,
our journey when viewed from the lens of actuality
seems to be a mere imagination--- endless in its
exploration.
By MOHAMMAD GH
Prose
THE TRIALS
of
RITA FAHEY
Exploring art as a
form of catharsis and
self-expression
By JYOTSNA NAIR
By SHAUNAK DE
A
uthor bio: Rita
Fahey is a
twenty -three
year old mass
of chaotic energy. She loves mango
milkshakes, cups of tea and novels by
Ernest Hemingway. She blogs at The
Red Teapot.
The above statement is not a lie,
but it’s not the truth either. Rita
is a blogger, an author — and a
waitress— because you don’t get
paychecks based on how many words
you write a day , all for yourself. She
deals with the dirty dishes and the
dirtier words her customers throw
at her the same way she deals with
everything— a fake smile. She lives in
a studio apartment she’s been living
in since her freshman year of college.
(Don’t mention the word college
to Rita, though. She’ll start ranting
about how she spent thousands of
dollars on learning something she
hardly gets paid for, when she could
have studied finance or molecular
biology instead. And then she’ll cry.)
She mostly cries at night; on the
rare days she falls asleep on her
bed instead of her laptop. For the
usual reasons— her inability to
pay rent, her lack of social life, her
recent weight gain. And she cries
for the reasons only fellow artists
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By HANNA POSTOVA
cry about—she has writer’s block,
one character seems like such a
Mary-Sue, her worry that her voice
is too imperfect, too childish, too
dull. Because sadly, Rita can’t just
be a writer. She’d be fine if she
didn’t have to
worry about
money and
her dentist
parents
who’ve turned
up their noses
at her M.F.A.
She’d be fine if she could just write
and find satisfaction in the catharsis
it brings her. But no, she is a human,
which means she has to worry about
‘‘ Yes, maybe she’d be fine if she
was a robot—emotionless- free of
bothersome feelings.’’
a million other things other than
writing. Rent. Friends. The aunt
who has cancer. Inability to afford
Netflix. Parents. Inability to afford
Netflix. Mean boss. Inability to
afford Netflix.
Yes, maybe
she’d be fine
if she was
a robot—
emotionlessfree
of
bothersome
feelings like self-doubt and sadness
and anger. She could just write...
and write...and write… (But what
could a robot write about? Circuits?)
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By ALEXANDER BMDDIGITAL.COM JAWFOX
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PROSE
Some days, the
words come easy.
They flow out of
her and onto the
screen. Her fingers glide over the
keys, as if they’re covered in butter.
Hope is sickening.
Her parents sometimes visit, always
with casseroles and Tupperware
boxes filled with food, certain she
stories: her sister ‘s new car, her
brother’s latest bonus. Their story
about Rita is a tragedy; the tale of
a girl foolish enough to follow her
own dreams, only to be crushed
under the weight of broken wishes.
Most days, it feels like she
has to physically pare off
each letter, each space, each
comma from her body with
a knife, until she’s left with
a pile of them. Most days,
it feels like she’s pushing
a boulder up a hill— only
to have it roll back down
and crush her on its way.
Most days, her fingers are
still and fat and hover over
her keyboard until the
screen flickers and dies.
It’s not that there aren’t
victories. After all,
sometimes, she gets okay
ideas. Her blog gets a few
more hits. It’s just that they
seem pathetic and small
and insignificant compared
to the glaring mound of
failures she’s collected.
Because of course there
are the rejection slips.
At first, she had kept all
the letters , and had even
faithfully archived the
emails, believing (like the
little naive fool she had been)
that when she was successful,
she could look back on them
and smile! She’d mapped
her life out like the plot of
a bildungsroman: first the
rejections, which were to be
expected (they were part of
the package, weren’t they?)
Then she’d find hope and
rise into the climax of her
story, having triumphed
over the odds, with several
illustrious publications
on her resume and phone
calls from publishing
companies begging to sign her on.
Now, she trashes the rejection slips.
By JAKE COLLING
‘‘ Most days, it feels like
she has to physically pare
off each letter, each space,
each comma from her
body with a knife, until
she's left with a pile of
them.’’
must be starving herself to pay the
rent. They sit on the edge of the
sofa and relate to her their own
Rita listens, and she wonders
why the hell she does this,
asks herself the same
questions her parents do.
Why she’s chosen late nights
and unwashed hair and cold
cereal as her staple meal when
she could have had anything
else. There are days when
she wants to demand her
seventeen -year -old self why
she chose creative writing
as her major of choice. She
doesn’t realize that she knows
the answer. The answer is in
those moments when she’s
trapped in a cocoon of her
own words and dead to the
world outside. When she’s so
busy building an imaginary
universe, letter by letter, that
she forgets the one she’s
living in. She doesn’t know yet
that she’s chosen happiness,
but she will one day.
Because although on most
days it sucks to be human and
needy and full of feeling, there
are days when she doesn’t
smile fake smiles. Because
although there are nights
when her tears and her cries
are her lullabies, there are
also nights when she’s wide
awake, and dancing to Kelly
Clarkson, and from the way
she’s waving those arms you’d
think she’d won the lottery or
something. But it’s not that—
it’s that someone left a nice
comment on her blog- it’s
that a magazine accepted one
of her short stories. Because
right now she is human,
and imperfect, and full of a
happiness no robot (and not
many other people) could
ever understand, and that feels
absurdly, ridiculously, wonderful.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r7Sq5uBTlc
can’t tell when the light begins
I
I can't tell where the journey ends Troubled waters behind me
I had to leave to be free
There's no place like home
That's what they told me
But what do I do
if I am all alone
Without a place to call my own
To be safe
I had to go
I need a fail-safe
not a happily ever after
But maybe there’s some peace and laughter
I am going into paradise
Detrimental sacrifice
But I gotta have hope
for the ones I love
paradise
I have to take a leap
The jump with uncertainty
I can't weep
There’s no sense of normalcy, normalcy
Because I’m searching for paradise something you don't find twice
To be safe, I had to go
I need a fail-safe —not a happily ever after
But maybe there’s some peace and laughter
Paradise
Can I escape away from this pain n’ fear—Paradise
I'm letting go of the madness right here—Paradise
Into paradise
By TIM B. MOTIVV
Music
INTO
Paradise
"Crossing the Ocean emerged out of
a pursuit to inspire and support the
community, and a desire for actions
to speak louder than words."
Crossing the Ocean
Youth Organization
INTERVIEW
Featuring
CROSSING
THE OCEAN
By CRISTIAN PALMER
«Protecting and aiding refugees through their journeys»
Near the end of 2020, The Global Youth
Review was given the opportunity
to virtually interview Crossing
the Ocean, a youth-led nonproft
organization dedicated to combating stigma
against immigrants and to raise awareness about
the refugee crisis.
Q: Please describe the main missions and goals
of your organization.
A: Our mission is to protect and aid refugees
through their journeys. To do this, we want
to first inform people about who refugees are
and the struggles they are facing. For example,
in the United States, there is a misconception
that the process of admitting refugees into the
country is not secure and terrorists can easily
enter the country this way, causing many people
to be opposed to helping refugees. The truth is
that the screening process takes 18-24 months,
making it the most difficult way to enter the
U.S. legally. I think if more people were aware
of the facts, then they would be more inclined
to help and support refugees who come to the
United States. Additionally, one of the biggest
struggles refugees face in any country is learning
the language. I believe if the natives of those
countries made a small effort, this is an issue
that could be easily solved. To help refugees, we
have to first learn the facts and how refugees are
struggling to survive.
What makes our organization different from
others is that we organize numerous events
throughout the year. For our first event, we
produced an original song as a fun way to
introduce the struggles of refugees to others
who are unfamiliar with the topic. Right now,
we are conducting interviews with refugees and
organizations who help refugees to gain a better
insight on the most effective way we can use our
organization to help.
Q: What inspired you to found Crossing the
Ocean? Do you hold any personal ties to the
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INTERVIEW
"Crossing the Ocean emerged out
of a pursuit to inspire and support
the community, and a desire
for actions to speak louder than
words. We are an organization
driven by progressive ideas, bold
actions, and a strong foundation
of support. "
mission of this organization?
A: I became inspired to help refugees after
visiting a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Refugees
were receiving help from organizations like
UNHCR and UNICEF, but there was still so much
more to get done. For example, some of the living
quarters were very crowded, and there was one
where three families had to live together in one
room, and some of the kids did not have clean
clothes to change into. By creating Crossing
the Ocean, I wanted to engage more people and
publicize the refugee crisis more. Unlike issues
such as global warming or poverty, I feel like
so little people know what's happening with
refugees around the globe. If they knew the facts,
I think the public would want to help more than
they do now, resulting in refugees being treated
more fairly.
Since we don't have to meet in real life, we can do
all of our work online. However, there were some
activities we had to reconsider because of the
pandemic. We wanted to invite a guest speaker
to talk about the refugee crisis at some of the
schools around us, but because of the pandemic,
the speaker was not available.
Q: What do you feel is the greatest strength of
Crossing the Ocean now?
A: Our greatest strength is probably the
members. We are all still young and curious
about the world, so I feel like there is a lot of
potential for us to grow from here. Everyone has
new ideas to help our organization grow so we
can help more refugees, and although we just
started a few months ago, we made so much
impact already.
Q: How has COVID-19 impacted your
organization?
A: We actually started this organization during
the pandemic. I think one good thing about
having everything online is that our team
consists of members from all other the world.
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Q: Is there any message you'd like to share
with young leaders that would like to start an
organization?
A: Be passionate about what you do. If you want
to start an organization, you should have a
purpose.
BMDDIGITAL.COM
CHAPTER
appetitive
EROS
"There is no art without eros ."
Max Frisch
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By HASIN FARHAN
Prose
STORK
""Stork" focuses on the definition
home, the disparities of childbirth,
and discrimination amongst the
world's most vulnerable population:
babies.
By ASHLEY PEARSON
BMDDIGITAL.COM
By ANDRAZ LAZIC
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PROSE
W
ith its mammoth
mouth and
oversized wings,
the stork has
always struck me
as a strange creature to represent
birth. As a mostly mute bird, the only
sound coming from a stork would
be one of alarm, perhaps because a
newborn has suddenly been placed in
its mouth. I think of the stork cursing
to itself, begrudgingly thinking, the
universe has damned me again.
It is not important to know who I
am. I am but a mere observer of the
universe, a passerby from below
looking above and perceiving the
world around me. All you need to
know about me is that I know storks
are carnivorous little bastards known
to snack on a small alligator now and
then.
And storks have teeth, you know?
They are as terrifying as geese
teeth. Ragged, jagged, and all things
terrifying and bad, the teeth line
their mouth like tines to a fork. When
storks carry little bundles of joy, do
they cut the straps? Do the babies
ever inadvertently fly on their own?
Mortality rates are no kinder to the
baby than they are to the stork. Storks
are victims of predators, losers of
bloody battles shown on Animal
Planet. Once their legs are broken, it
is as if they have been tied down to
the ground. Unable to fly. Unable to
take off. Another victim of the cruel
mistress; Earth, or more specifically
Mother Nature. She watches from
above with her hands held up in selfdefense,
as if to say, “You did this to
yourself.” Mother Nature nurtures,
but also controls the world with an
iron fist. I think, in that sense, she
seems lonely. I wonder if she thinks
of her loved ones, or which she has
few.
I can’t imagine the sun, moon, or
stars are great company.
My company are the strangers I
observe. I learned long ago that it was
not worth my time to make friends or
have lovers. All people, animals, and
BMDDIGITAL.COM
things pass me too quickly.
Many times I also wonder, how often do
birds think of their loved ones? Birds
are quick and tricky creatures. Their
lives are much shorter than mine. Do
other storks ever cross their minds
once they are gone, leaving them as
lonely as Mother Nature or as impartial
as I? I could sit at home and ponder
these questions all night long.
Home is a tricky word. It sits bitterly on
my tongue, like a nest collapsing during
a storm. It is a human’s natural instinct
to look away from a trio of dead baby
birds. They may feel sorry. They may
even pout. Almost every human likes
to gawk, whether it be in their own
backyard or from behind a glass wall.
Behind any glass wall of a hospital
nursery lie hundreds of thousands of
babies: squealing, gooing, crying, silent.
Are they home? Why they have been
dropped off with their families, haven’t
they; cradled in the sterilized arms of a
faint mother, ogled by a grandma with
the camera flash on too high, serenaded
poorly by an aunt from Louisiana.
Yet, a number of babies, as many as
those that lie behind glass walls, lie in
plastic domes.
A different kind of gawking occurs
during an early delivery; one that is
not so kind. Sure, some happy endings
arrive later than expected; A gooing
baby being driven away in a Blue
Suburban, the mother riding in the
back just to gaze fondly. Yet, it is the
quiet pushing of baby-sized stretchers
down hospital halls that I think of the
most. The places where no stork is
allowed.
Like a stork migrating through the worst
of weather, I find it hard to escape the
West, the United States in particular.
The ideal West. The ideal United States.
The American dream land where all
babies are heard and seen and dropped
off. Where the storks are immortalized
in announcement signs and banners;
a pristine white stork, the vision of
responsibility, cradling a grinning baby
in its wake. A delivery man. A viral USPS
worker.
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Glorious.
Storks are good at keeping
humankind’s secrets. Evil or
sympathetic bastards storks are
hiding behind dumpsters or landing
at fire stations and watching the
darkest underbellies of birth;
accidental misfires in a bathtub,
escapes from public restrooms.
These birds are the ones you don’t see
on signs. Dirty things, sad and tragic,
no time for grand announcements,
they are too busy in other places.
Don’t even get me started on the
flocks of storks.
Flocks are no secret keepers, at least
not in the traditional sense. Part of
an open secret or scheme maybe.
Certainly no Scorpio, Taurus, or
Pisces. More of a fire sign, fanning
the flames. The babies in the flames
are loud and nasally, akin to braying
donkeys. Desperate to make contact
with others. Desperate for human
touch.
The bray is the noisiest at orphanages
where babies are kept like donkeys;
two to a bed, a group on the floor,
all vying for the same attention. The
cribs are lined up like stalls. Feed me,
touch me, play with me, they say.
And again, humans gawk as humans
do, shoving a bottle in the baby’s
mouths like it’s a carrot for a donkey.
Haw. Haw.
Westerners from thousands of miles
away love to watch the flocks of
storks go by. I think the storks are
like airplanes to them because they
always squint at them with their
binoculars. Wait for them to pluck
a passenger from a young, povertystricken
mother’s arms after the
mother has groggily signed a set of
papers. Pay close attention to the
color of the basket. Look for the
perfect one and gawk at hundreds
more. With that, the Westerners
bring their tried and true traditions.
They clap when the storks land and
place a baby in their arms. They pay a
pretty penny to fly home.
No need for a stork in that situation.
PROSE
By CHARLES DELUVIO
Like storks migrating across the ocean, home is
interchangeable for babies. Home is moveable,
if you pay the right price and have the right
resources, then home can be anywhere. Illinois.
Maryland. Delaware. Ontario. And I have seen
just as many successful adoptions as failed ones.
I have seen just as many good storks as bad ones.
However, no matter the outcome, the stork
becomes a meaningless symbol to me, just a silly
mascot to plaster on walls and cars.
Like migration, the route of orphans also repeats
itself. It’s a complicated path with more endings
and beginnings than one can count and it’s a
path storks stay on the sidelines for.
Maybe a formation of a workers’ union is
overdue because somewhere along the way,
a stork confuses a nice two-story home in
American suburbia with a crowded foster home
consisting of a dozen starving kids. Another
Another stork dies crossing a foreign border. It
drowns, flapping its wings; a silent, desperate
call for help. News consumers gawk at the sight
of the scatterbrained bird. The surrounding
storks gawk too, afraid of their own fate if they
do not escape the muddy waters. Thousands of
people share the video, once, twice, three times,
before it enters the trending pages and leaves
just as quickly as it was posted. Stared at by
thousands, yet saved by no one.
With its gaping mouth and beady eyes, the stork
still strikes me as a strange beast to represent
the arrival of new life. But, I suspect that the
stork is not all at fault here, for it cannot help
its funky looks and strange motivations. A stork
can also not control its own destiny. It is another
mere victim of the cruel universe, another victim
at the hands of Mother Nature, humans, despair,
and all terrible things in between, just like the
baby it carries in its beak.
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PHOTOGRAPHY
Feature
Lost in the Pangs of
OUGHTS
"Lost in the pangs of thoughts is a
photographical representation of
an average man who in the course
of sailing through the storm of
life came in confrontation with
an 'iceberg'. To continue the sail
became a hard decision to make;
moving forward- a herculean task;
retracting- seemingly impossible."
By SULOLA IMRAN ABIOLA
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By ARISA CHATTASA
BMDDIGITAL.COM
OW
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W
hite walls adorn the sparse compound where crisp leaves whisper
sour truths along the opaque floor where sun dried feathers flutter
in the morning air. But soon fiery skies will open to lambaste stony
archways, barren and dilapidated. A place where radioactive ignorance left a human
wasteland to grow unkempt and anomalous amidst stretches of lush scenery.
This offshore land sat hidden amidst the façade of tropical splendor where new
technology served to deceive the masses as memories sat as fallacies expunged
from the great cannon of popular history derived solely from masculine arrogance,
a device so easily weaponized by bureaucracies contrived and driven by inertia. But
still in the memory of some sat this tragedy where thousands lay under tropical heat
simply awaiting an eternal rest dignified.
But this microcosm served as a constant reminder of the folly of men never
quenched by enterprise and fiscal growth. For deep in valleys now dark and earthen
could hollowed homes be seen amidst the decaying carcasses of trees beyond time
and human exploitation, now left to die in slow rot amongst fields flattened by
substances derived in some far off laboratory and maximized to ensure destruction
fruitful to a victor callous and deluded.
However, chosen spectators in suits white do venture to the cusp of this vast plain
from time to time as vibrant wreaths darken over the spoiled ground, saturated
by the slow descent of the departed into a place of rest adorned with the artifacts
of the living. But this microcosm is no dystopia, nor no idle fantasy, much like
history repetitive and molded by hands mischievous. For deep in the hearts of all
intellectuals lies a stain of conceit guised under achievement where revenge and
inflicted suffering serve only to bolster a hunger for power so insatiable that to
destroy, is to truly live.
By A.R. SALANDY
ER
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W O R T H
M O R E
POETRY
M
T H A N
T H E
W O R S T
W E ' V E
D O N E
E
R
C
W O R T H
M O R E
T H A N
Y
T H E
W O R S T
W E ' V E
D O N E
By DMITRY RATUSHNY
POETRY
WORTH
THE
worst we've
By CHARLES NNANNA
MORE THAN
DONE
Inspired by Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy”
The humanity we share is but a stack
of our brokenness. A thing
that's better understood when the mind
of mercy, &
Yes,
sees through the fractured perfect lens
the heart beats from a temple stained colourfully
by guilt & grace -- an unmerited favour.
the whole world is but a long thread of brokenness,
roped to a small
steadily
but mighty needle — mercy — patiently but
carrying every heart through the soft silk
of hope, fostering solidarity.
a great warrior,
breaking the lawless
& fastening others to the
trolley of electrocution. / But
Justice, sure, is
perhaps
Sure,
Guilt & Guilty
aren't only found behind bars, they live in
all our hearts, in all our homes. / But light
doesn't care where the darkness has swallowed,
it goes in all the same. So maybe
we all need grace,
the light of peace that penetrates even where guilt
has consumed.
she'll be strongest when she wields the sword of
forgiveness
yet without tilting her perfect scale.
By MIKITA YO
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By NATHAN MCDINE
Prose
SMALL TOWN
SUMMER
"Small Town Summer" takes
inspiration from Ashley's hometown
and is loosely inspired by the people
and places she has encountered.
By ASHLEY PEARSON
PROSE
T
he emo kids
always bought
Monster Energy
drinks. They were
the cheapest at your local Dollar
General: $1.00. The drink was also
$1.00 at the Aerco down the street,
but there was a chance of being
heckled by old haggard-looking men
there. You did not understand why
the darkly clad teens loved the drink
so much. To you, Monster Energy
tastes like Mountain Dew that has
been left in the sun too long. You were
always a tea person and that summer
you were especially addicted to Gold
Peak sweet tea, despite its sickly
sweet taste.
The emo kids stuck out like a sore
thumb in your small town of 10,000.
They huddled together like penguins
under the light pole. On your
way to work, you would always
see them there; smoking a pack
of swiped cigarettes, passing
around a joint, or pooling money
together for a Monster Energy
run.
In a way, they were cute, definitely
endearing and some of your
favorite customers. You became
acquainted with a few of them
over the long summer. You remember
their youthful joy after coming back
from Warped Tour. The group of
kids had visited your workplace the
day after they returned from the
concerts. Apparently, seven of them
had crammed into an old Honda
Civic for the three-hour ride up to
Chicago. They all rented one room
out of a dingy motel and spent most
of their money bribing managers
to get backstage. One of the kids, a
16-year-old named Jenny, came back
with Gerard Way’s signature tattooed
on her lower forearm.
As a rising senior in college, you
thought the tattoo was hilarious.
Now, you wonder if Jenny ever
covered the tattoo up, or if she is
still crowd surfing at a My Chemical
Romance concert.
--------------------------
You were stuck in the small Illinois
town for the summer against your
will. One of your professors wanted
you on campus for a research
project; some outdated, outreach
program about the effects of SARS.
Turns out, a research project did not
equate to an internship and despite
spending hours going door to door
with a SARS survey, you were not
getting paid by the college. You were
unemployed, 2000 miles away from
home and your dad had just been let
go from his job. You were broke.
You applied for several jobs but soon
found out that small towns liked to
hire locals. It did not matter if you
were older or more experienced
than them. Even if the applicant was
‘‘ One of the greatest challenges
is being yourslef in a world
that’s trying to make like
everyone else.’’
sixteen and had just gotten their
license, they were still preferred over
you. Nobody knew you, and frankly,
it did not seem like a lot of the locals
liked you.
Maybe it was your distaste for eye
contact and verbal communication
or your love for athletic wear. You
had never met such talkative people.
You had never seen so many people
in button-up shirts in one place.
It was astonishing.
You ran into one of the emo kids, a
boy named Andrew, during one of
your job interviews. It was at the
local Dairy Queen. You both stuck
out like sore thumbs in your own
ways. Andrew’s eyes were ringed
with charcoal black eyeliner and had
an eyebrow piercing. You forgot to
wear slacks and a shirt that wasn’t a
tank top. The manager, a well-known
soccer mom in the community,
looked at you both with disdain. You
thought that maybe you had a chance
at getting hired here. You even took
out your ear piercings specifically for
the interview.
You both didn’t get far into the
interview before being abruptly
dismissed.
Andrew shrugged at you and tried
to scrounge up enough money for a
small blizzard. You ended up paying
for blizzards for both of you and he
gave you a nod of approval before
skateboarding into the afternoon.
Dollar General became your safe
haven. It was the town outcasts’ safe
haven. The flickering yellow sign was
the outcasts’ red light. The dingy,
dirty building on the Southside
of town rarely received any
applications (or foot traffic) from
high school students. The light
poles surrounding the building
only worked about half the time
and local mothers did not want
their precious children to walk
alone near there in the dark.
Even the emo kids’ parents were
apprehensive of them being hired
at the store, despite them hanging
around the light poles almost every
day of the week. It always smelled
like a mix of marijuana, Monster
Energy, and butchered pork in the
parking lot. There was a cheap, dimly
lit, deli next door.
There wasn’t a lot of competition.
So, you were hired on the spot.
The store needed a lot of help.
Despite being midsized, there were
only a few other employees, all
middle-aged white women with
baby boomer names; Mary, Susan,
Sandy, and Terri. You thought Terri
was the store manager, but all of the
women ran the store with an iron
fist; sweeping every hour, making
sure the emo kids and other local
teenagers weren’t stealing candy
bars, both check-out lanes always
open, candy arranged by size and
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By JAKOB OWENS
brand, fake flowers arranged by
color. Business came in waves and
some days passed by with hardly any
business at all. You often wondered
how the Dollar General stayed open,
‘‘ In a lot of ways, your baby
boomer co-workers seemed
like the only stagnant people
you knew. "
or if it was still open today. Before
you graduated from college, a new,
shiny Dollar General was being built
on the Northside of town and you
had not visited the small town in
over ten years.
By the end of your college career, the
emo kids had migrated elsewhere.
Some ended up going to college and
others joined the workforce. They
grew up. They went away. Maybe,
they even went to work at the new
and shiny Northside Dollar General.
In a lot of ways, your baby boomer
co-workers seemed like the only
stagnant people you knew.
You remember a regional director,
a man by the name of Paul. He was
a hot topic during lazy afternoons.
Paul lived in a pretty, two-story brick
house in a gated community
a city over. He hardly came
around and you only met
him a handful of times. You
remember his handshake
being a little too firm and
a little too sweaty. His
mustache grew too long over
his lips and his dress pants
were around an inch too
long. Mary said he owned all
of the local Dollar Generals
and was making a fortune, except for
the one where you started working.
And all he had to show for it was his
allegedly beautiful home and leased
new model Nissan.
Susan said he was too
busy in his in-ground
pool to care about
his pants dragging
too low or a bunch
of women making
minimum wage.
All of the ladies had
pristine looking
uniforms. The collars
of their black polos
By JOSHUA HOEHNE
were stiff and their black Bobbie
Brooks slacks were always lint-free.
Terri even kept a lint brush from
the bargain bin by the cash register.
There was not a strict dress code at
Dollar General; black shirt, black
pants or jeans, and badge with your
name. You had everything but the
badge stuffed in your dorm closet;
a plain black top from Kmart, plain
jeans from Abercrombie and Fitch,
or your sister’s slacks from her
debate days. You received the badge
from Terri on the first day of work.
She pinned it neatly on your shirt.
Terri shook her head at you when you
clocked in for your first day of work.
She let out a disapproving grunt and
handed you a lint brush. She ordered
you an embroidered Dollar General
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By SAMUEL SNG
polo from a crumpled employee
magazine and took the money for it
from your first paycheck.
“You need to get an iron,” Terri
grumbled on your lunch hour. “Kids
these days don’t iron anything.”
“I have a steamer,” you replied
and Terri only shook her head again
and mumbled something about
“Californians.”
You picked up a small, handheld iron
from the Home Goods section that
night after work. It was blue and it
was cheap, but it lasted you until late
last year.
You remember Sandy saying “We
don’t get a lot of people like you
around here” when she bagged
your iron. You were sweeping the
yellowing tiled floor as she bagged.
It was your third and last sweep of
the day and you were relieved. You
wanted to climb into your bed, turn
on your television, and fall asleep,
not think about your place on this
Earth. You dumbly asked what Sandy
meant and Sandy only laughed in
return.
You thought Sandy was talking about
how Dollar General didn’t attract a
lot of college students. After all, you
were the only one you had seen at the
store.
That night, before falling asleep,
you looked into the cracked mirror
in your dorm and let out a long “oh”
and tied back your long, black hair
and sighed.
Sandy hadn’t been talking about you
being a college student.
You looked at your desk. There was
a pile of surveys stacked high on the
right side of it. You sighed again and
rubbed at your temples. You received
an email from your mother that
night. She asked how work was going
and if you carried your pepper spray
with you.
--------------------------------
You looked a lot different from the
people living in your college town.
Your long black hair, tanned skin and
deep brown eyes contrasted from the
sea of light haired, light eyed, light
skinned citizens. Your nose was a
little too big and wide. Your eyes were
too small. Your hair was too thick
and coarse. Sure, there were people
who looked like you at your college,
but your campus was separated from
the town. More separated than you
initially thought. To you, the campus
was a haven. It was its own little city.
On every college flyer you received
in the mail, the admissions office
boasted students had everything
they needed on campus. There was
no need to venture off into the real
world when there was a bagel shop
next to the dining hall.
You didn’t leave campus a lot during
the regular school year. You had
several friends who you liked to hang
out with. You liked to grab coffee
with them and study together in the
big, old library. Occasionally, you all
would venture off campus to grab
McDonald’s, or, if you were feeling
particularly rebellious, you would
carpool to the nearest city. The city
had a mall and a Walmart: every
shopping essential a college student
would need back in 2006.
Looking back, you realize that a lot
of your friends were sheltered. They
came from gated communities and
luxurious condos. They were afraid
of venturing outside your college
campus. It was their safe haven. It
was their red light.
Your college friends didn’t have a lot
of experience with being outcasts
or outsiders. Your college friends
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couldn’t stand the thought of finding
themselves on the “wrong” side of
town. The summer you worked at
Dollar General, you kept your mouth
shut about where you worked. For
all they knew, you could have been
working at the local McDonald’s all
summer, and even that disgusted
them. Your friends were all from
places where McDonald’s was a place
you only ventured if you were drunk
and wanted fries and your favorite
gourmet burger place closed before
midnight. It was never a place you
went to if you were actually hungry.
They weren’t used to working at
all, aside from some small gigs on
campus, but you highly doubted that
working at the library in circulation
was comparable to working in retail.
---------------------------------
It was an early morning when Mary
accused you of tearing down her
parents’ home, her childhood home.
“You tore down my mom and
dad’s house.” She blamed you over a
morning coffee (black and bitter, the
only kind in the break room). She was
only teasing you about your college
buying up properties and tearing
them down, but it was too early in
the morning for you to recognize
that and the caffeine had not entered
your system yet (you were still used
to caramel macchiatos). Instead, you
raised your eyebrows in shock.
“I’m from California, Mary,” you
replied.
She laughed and laughed. It was a
hoarse, “rattle your bones” laugh
that made the air smell like smoke
and nicotine. Snorts came loudly
from her nostrils, and she coughed.
“I know that honey. Anyone around
you would know that” She caught her
breath, and wheezed “I mean your
college. You shoulda’ seen your face-”
“My college?”
Mary let out an impatient sigh,
and clambered for her inhaler, “Your
college tore down my parents’ home.
Built that nice science building
where it was...didn’t have enough
money to fight the bank for it even
though mom left it for us kids, so the
college bought it instead. You know,
big bucks,” She made a big circling
motion with her hands and handed you
a broom.
Before you could say anything she said,
“Doesn’t matter now, get to dustin’
missy.”
And you nodded and got to dusting.
Andrew, Jenny, and their friends whose
names you can’t remember, came in
later that day. You were stocking shelves
and they were buying copious bags of
Doritos and Cheetos. You asked them
about the college tearing down homes
and reacted casually as if you had asked
how they felt about a Billboard pop
single from ten years ago. They told you
it happened all the time. The college
tore down a lot and their parents
complained about it. They didn’t care.
But, of course, they were just kids who
hated their small town.
“The college is rich and we aren’t.”
Jenny shrugged and chewed at her lip
ring, “That’s just how things are. That’s
how they’ve always been.”
-----------------------------------
Sandy’s husband almost shot you in the
head a month into your job. You were
not at work, but instead doing door-todoor
SARS surveys. It was a slow day.
At least four doors had been slammed
in your face and only one person had
not been reluctant to give you data. It
was Jenny, the emo girl who frequented
the Dollar General. Jenny was a minor
and you were not supposed to gather
data directly from minors, but sixteen
rounded to eighteen and, as Terri would
say, you were up shit creek without a
paddle.
Sandy and her family lived up the street
from Jenny in a tan double-wide with
baby blue shutters. She had flowers
planted out front: blue and white
Hardys. There were hanging baskets
of pink petunias on metal hangers,
rainbow-colored spinners, and stone
statues of little girls. Dandelions
intertwined with overgrown grass and
windchimes blew gently in the wind.
What you did not know was that Sandy’s
husband kept a shotgun
next to the front door
or how “weary” he was
of solicitors. He saw
you walking down the
street and watched you
through the bedroom
blinds as you walked
up his porch and
knocked three times.
He watched from the
kitchen as you tapped
your foot impatiently
and opened the
unlocked screen door
to knock on the front
door.
He stared you down
and pointed the barrel
of the gun at your
temple.
You dropped your
survey papers. They
scattered around you
like a herd of doves
escaping a bullet. You
raised your hands,
high, and dropped
to your knees. You
squeezed your eyes
shut and could feel the
world spinning around
on its axis.
The bullet never came,
of course, it didn’t, you
were still alive after all.
Sandy’s husband
dropped his gun and
stared at his hands.
Before he could say
anything to you, you
took your chance
to run. Jenny saw
you running. You
remember seeing her
blank stare and tiny
o-shaped mouth. She
looked down the street
and back to you and
shut her blinds. She
never mentioned the
situation directly to
you, but when you saw
her again she stared at
your forehead like you
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PROSE
had a third eye.
You locked yourself in
your dorm for a few
days. You called sick
into work and emailed
your professor you
caught the flu and had
a fever of 103 degrees
in the middle of
summertime.
You didn’t do doorto-door
survey testing
after going to Sandy’s
house. Out of sheer
luck, your professor
assigned you to do
lab work instead. God
forbid, you cause a
flu outbreak in the
small town. To you,
the flu was the least
of your worries. But,
you supposed that a
flu outbreak would be
disastrous to a small
town where half of its
population couldn’t
afford a general
checkup.
You never told your
professor what
happened at Sandy’s
house. A little voice in
the back of your head
told you if the college
knew about Sandy’s
husband, they would
tear her house down
too. You never told
anyone, although you
suspected all of your
coworkers knew what
happened. Their once
nosy questions about
SARS and surveys
ceased to exist once
you went back to work.
You noticed on your
next paycheck that you
were paid for your sick
days.
You did not tell
your parents either.
According to your
father’s monotone
voice and your mother’s overly cheerful
tone during phone calls, they had
bigger problems to worry about.
You never called the police. Something
in your stomach told you that it was
wrong to. Maybe it was liberal, big city
thinking, but you thought the police
could not solve this type of problem.
And maybe it was dumb, but you
could not stand the thought of hurting
Sandy’s feelings. You had to work
at Dollar General for the rest of the
summer after all.
And who knows, maybe your dad
would commit tax fraud in the future.
Anything to meet ends meet, right?
-----------------------------------
You found out you were almost shot
by Sandy’s husband the next day you
showed up to work. Sandy apologized
to you profusely as soon as she saw you
walk in the door. You were confused
at first, but things quickly clicked
together. Between her choked sobs, you
could make out the words “husband”
and “sorry.” You hugged her tight. She
handed you dozens of crumpled SARS
survey papers that you later recycled at
your dorm.
Sandy took you out to dinner that night.
She took you to the nicest restaurant in
town: a small steakhouse bordering on
the city limits. You knew she couldn’t
afford to take you there on her minimum
wage income, but you let her take you
anyway. You ended up paying for half of
the meal after seeing Sandy was paying
with a tattered credit card. You slipped
a $20 bill to the waiter while Sandy was
in the bathroom and the waiter knew
what to do with it.
You both looked terribly out of place in
the steakhouse in your Dollar General
uniforms. You ordered fettuccine
alfredo with some kind of fancy steak
and Sandy ordered Top Sirloin. You
remember how tickled she was that
they put chives and green onions on her
side baked potato.
You guys made small talk. You mainly
talked about the bread basket between
the two of you. You both weren’t used
to eating sweet buns.
After a while, you learned that Sandy’s
husband had PTSD from the Vietnam
War. He was off his medications
again. He was off of them frequently
due to how expensive they were and
how inflated the costs have gotten
over the years. The nearest veteran’s
hospital was over one hundred miles
away and their car, a beat-up Honda
Accord, only worked on certain
days. Carpools were easy to find in
town, but carpools up to the nearest
micropolitan area were much harder
to come by.
She thanked you for not calling
the police. Sandy feared them. As
unhappy as she was in her marriage,
she could not bear the thought of
losing her husband. She feared him
being whisked away to a psych ward,
or even worse, jail or prison.
She said you reminded him of the
war with your long black hair and
wide black eyes and you just nodded
your head and chewed your sweet
bun thoughtfully.
---------------------------------
You spent half of your paycheck
getting your hair bleached, cut, and
toned sometime after your dinner
with Sandy. You felt a little guilty
afterwards. You could get your hair
done, but your parents were not
sure if they could replace the broken
microwave or fix the leaking roof.
In one email, your mom had put in
between sparkling cat pictures to live
a little.
So you did.
You don’t remember specifically
when you got your hair done, but
you remember your hairdresser.
Ironically, it was Andrew’s mother
despite Andrew being the only kid
in his friend group with natural hair
color.
She had his pictures taped up to the
big lit-up mirror and tsk’d when you
said you knew her son (the eyebrow
ring is removable).
CHAL
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"H
e’s so smart. He’s
a good kid, but
all he wants to
do is leave town
since he opened up a My Place,”
She sectioned off another chunk
of hair, “Every kid’s been
leaving town or cooping
themselves up on that
goddamn college campus
and the town’s left with a
bunch of nobodies like me.”
“You’re not a nobody.”
“Oh, baby, I’m a hairdresser.
I know that I mean somethin’
to people, but you said,
you’re what pre-medical?
Look at where you’ll go and I
love it here, but, I’ll be here
forever.”
--------------------------
Your dad was hired for a
new job in August. He made
more money than he had in
his entire life and the first
thing he told you was quit
your job. He wanted you to
focus on your studies and
go into a stable career, one
where you’d never be fired.
And, you did quit. At the end
of the day, you were a college
student. You missed having
fun on campus. You missed
not knowing what you
learned over the summer.
And things worked out for
you like they always did.
You tried to keep in contact
with your co-workers,
but there was a divide
between you after you quit.
Even with Sandy.
You were a regular college
student again and they were
just a bunch of southside
townies. They noticed your
new purse when you visited
and you noticed the dark
circles underneath their
eyes. Sandy dropped off treats
outside your dorm a couple times. She
stopped after a few months though.
You never found out why, but you
suspected it was because you lived
with girls who got gourmet cupcakes
delivered to them on their birthdays.
You watched the emo kids leave one
by one from town. Potential going to
cities and states around the country.
By VIKTOR FORGACS
‘‘ And at the end of the
day, you feel nothing.
And at the end of the day,
you can still do nothing.’’
And you were proud of them. You
still are proud of them. You sent a
friend request to Jenny and Andrew
on Facebook and was glad to see
they are doing well. And you tried to
ignore the dilapidated states of their
parents’ houses and the clean floors
of their apartments and houses.
You lived in a clean floored
house yourself, located in a nice
neighborhood just outside
of a big, liberal city. Your
parents lived in a nice
neighborhood too. They
lived in a condo in a nice
little retirement community
in Florida. You think that
in a lot of ways, money
bought happiness for them.
-------------------------
Sometimes you feel guilt
in the pit of your stomach.
There are nights where you
lie in bed and think of why
you couldn’t have paid for
Sandy’s hospital bills or built
houses around the college.
But, you were just a kid and
there’s nothing you really
could have done. And, still,
there’s little to nothing to
do. You are a doctor now, but
it’s not like you can treat the
entire town for every illness
and disease free of charge.
You have to live too.
But, still you feel guilty. You
make the occasional donation
to the local public school. You
send over toys and books
for the annual Christmas
donation drive. When you
come back for class reunions,
you try to host some sort of
free clinic. You’re an alumni of
the college now. You allocate
your money to the town and
college connections and
pray it actually goes there.
And at the end of the
day, you feel nothing.
And at the end of the day,
you can still do nothing.
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WRIT
IS T
GEOME
OF T
SO
P L A
ING
HE
TTRY
HE
UL
T
O
ISSUE ONE
Contrivutors
CONTRIBUTORS
We are beyond honored to
showcase the work of many
talented photographers, artists,
and writers in our inaugural
issue.
Over 20 countries are
represented in our magazine,
including Ireland, Japan, and
the U.S.
POETRY
LAOISE NI
RAGHALLAIGH
Laoise Ní Raghallaigh
is an Irish writer
living and studying in
Galway, Ireland. When
not writing she enjoys
playing music, reading
and walking the Salthill
promenade.
"Instances in Mirrors"
was written to reform
incoherent thoughts
about living with
polycystic ovarian
syndrome, and to
provide a perspective for
other girls and women
who live with the same
condition, so that they
may potentially see
themselves and their
struggles in a piece of
writing.
Laoise has previously
been published in
Perhappened, Vox Galvia
and Reflex Press.
POETRY
CHARLES NNANNA
Charles Nnanna grew
up in a humble space
somewhere in Abuja,
Nigeria. He has always
loved that amazing
realities could be created
on paper, thus for most
part of his life he has
aspired to be a writer, or
a storyteller as he fondly
calls it. He still has the
aspiration. His writings
primarily aims at
provoking introspection
— as evident in the
three poems written
by him — about mercy,
supplication and the
irony and/or paradox of
life. He's either sleeping
or reading if he isn't
scribbling. Sometimes
he's doing all three at
once. Let's holla on
Twitter; @runnyink_
POETRY
SARAH CHAUDHRY
Sarah Chaudhry is
a Pakistani Marvel
enthusiast who lives in
New York. Besides her
love for watching The
Avengers over and over,
she loves to listen to
music, read YA novels,
and write poems and
stories of her own. She
aspires to become an
author and publish a
novel. She is a feminist
as well as an advocate,
and “spirited cloth” is
an example of that. She
has work published in
Cathartic Magazine, Ice
Lolly Mag, and IRIS Mag.
BMDDIGITAL.COM
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CONTRIBUTORS
POETRY
ROSALIND MORAN
Rosalind Moran is a
British-Australian
writer of fiction, nonfiction,
satire, reviews,
and poetry. Her work
has been featured in
Prospect Magazine,
Meanjin, Overland, The
Lifted Brow, Rabbit
Poetry Journal, and Kill
Your Darlings, among
others. She received a
Highly Commended in
the 2019 June Shenfield
Poetry Award and is
currently a postgraduate
student at the University
of Cambridge. Her
favourite poems often
involve political allegory.
@RosalindCMoran is her
Twitter handle.
POETRY
KATH G
Kath G is a Filipina
writer. She is a full-time
editor for an educational
consulting company. At
this time, she dedicates
her writing for herself.
She likes to be reminded
that writing is not all
corporate work. Her
writing has appeared
in Unpublishable Zine,
amongst others. You
can follow her through
her Twitter account: @
KathG_writes.
FEATURED ARTIST
CINDY PHAN
Cindy Phan is an ice
skater, inline skater,
and outdoor adventurer.
She prides herself in
being that one friend
you’ll never get bored
around, as she's full
of ideas, and always
tries to get people out
of their comfort zone.
Photography, horror,
heavy metal, wine, and
animals are a few of
Cindy's interests, which
are ever-expanding
because she literally
aspires to do everything.
Cindy's only fears in life
are losing the people she
loves, and leaving this
world without satisfying
all her curiosities.
POETRY
ALEX SMITH
Alex Smith (he/him)
is an anxious and
depressed Brit with a
penchant for expression
through writing. He
studies Psychology
academically and
Philosophy in his free
time. He gets inspiration
for his writing primarily
through his own
mental health, but also
through spiritualism,
existentialism and
horror. His writing
frequently plays with
cryptic messaging,
subverting expectations
and personifying
symptoms of illness. His
piece here, Brain Rot,
reflects a typical "down
day" experienced by
many, especially in times
like these. You can find
him on Twitter here (@
asardonicspirit).
POETRY
LORNA MCBAIN
Lorna McBain is an
English young poet
who has previously
been published in
RISEN Magazine, Ice
Lolly Review and Love
Letters Magazine. After
developing a love for
writing, it slowly became
Lorna’s passion. Despite
writing as a child, she
never realized how much
she adored writing and
how natural it felt. When
she's not writing Lorna
can often be found
reading, watching old
movies and listening
to an eclectic range of
music. 'Censored in the
Supermarket' stems from
the idea of exhaustion
after sociopolitical
frustration.
POETRY
HWOMAN
Hwoman is a young
female creator and
writer based in Saudi
Arabia.
She is mostly inspired
by her circle, from
its people, languages,
culture, and music.
Art has been around
her since birth which
gave her an opportunity
to get to express and
experiment from a very
young age, later then,
after high school, she
decided to proceed
with her education
in art by majoring
in Architectural
Engineering.
Art was introduced to
her in a lot of great ways.
She learned to see it and
feel it in the simplest
details that she grew up
around. Hw0man is the
story of a human woman.
Most of her pieces talk
about how she perceives
her feelings and energy
she’s surrounded with as
a woman and a human.
“Questions That Lead
to Nothing” is a poem
Hw0man wrote in 2019
about the connection of
feelings between her and
her grandmother. Both
her and her grandma
feel some type of
confusion with what they
are around, the people,
the energy, and events
too.
The only difference is
that she is still growing,
learning and questioning
while her grandma
is just getting older
and the symptoms of
Alzheimer’s starting
to show more clearly,
it made her question
a lot of things she had
already been introduced
to. From faces to places
and events. The writer
felt connected to her
grandma based on this
new chapter she entered
in her life. Everything
sounds confusing and
different.
As the writer says the
piece connects her with
her grandmother since
it speaks about their
merged emotions and
their strong relationship
since she practically
grew up around her
grandmama.
(Her pain is mine; my
pain is hers).
POETRY
ABDULMUEED
BALOGUN
Abdulmueed Balogun is
a Nigerian, and currently
an undergraduate
studying Medical
Laboratory Science,
University of Ibadan,
Oyo State, Nigeria.
Writing poetry is a
dream come true for
him, and every day he
strives to stretch his
poetic wings. Poetry had
changed his perspective
of life, and to him, poetry
profoundly is a blessing.
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CONTRIBUTORS
PROSE
JYOTSNA NAIR
Jyotsna Nair is a
seventeen-year old
currently living in
Kerala, India. She mostly
writes prose fiction, and
her work has previously
been published in
Canvas Literary Journal,
Cathartic Youth Literary
Journal, Ogma Magazine,
and The Apprentice
Writer. She is a firm
believer in the power
of banana bread, and
has been known to
consume copious
amounts in alarmingly
short intervals of time.
In her free time, she
enjoys exploring real
and imaginary worlds
with her writing.
MUSIC
CROSSING THE
OCEAN
"Where Shall We Flee
To Now?" An everyday
phrase for the refugees.
Life as a refugee is
characterized by
uncertainty. Often even
family members get lost
on the journey. In order
to avoid human rights
violations and abuse, it is
sad and ironic that most
refugees flee, yet their
precarious situation
as refugees exposes
them to more violations
of human rights and
violence. Walking away
from danger with one's
valuables makes a
refugee vulnerable to
robbery from armed
marauders. Occasionally,
refugees often have
trouble accessing food
and water since these
services are mostly in
short supply and are
the key targets of armed
groups.
Crossing the Ocean is
a group of determined
high school students
aiming to raise
awareness for those 79.5
million refugees- unsure
of their destination
or whether they will
ever return home from
a war or oppressive
government. It’s a
collective effort. We
need your support, your
generosity to save those
innocent lives. These
days, many of us feel
as though everything is
out of our control. That
may be true, but we are
reaching out to see if
you would be interested
in coming together
to do something that
is possible even now:
helping and caring for
refugees around the
globe.
FEATURED ARTIST
SULOLA IMRAN
ABIOLA
Sulola Imran Abiola
(The official Sulola) is a
Nigerian photographer
& poet, a lover of art
& a public servant. He
his passionate about
telling stories in a
dynamic & compelling
way—ways that lead to
same conclusion. His
works have appeared
or are forthcoming in
The Quills, Undivided
Magazine, and The
Best Of Africa amongst
others. If he's not
scribbling on pages of
square sheets, he's either
savouring the sounds
of camera shutters
or savouring mama's
delicacy.
PROSE
A.R. SALANDY
Anthony is a mixed-race
poet & writer whose
work tends to focus
on social inequality
throughout late-modern
society. Anthony travels
frequently and has spent
most of his life in Kuwait
jostling between the UK
& America. Anthony's
work has been published
86 times internationally.
Anthony has 1 published
chapbook titled 'The
Great Northern Journey'.
'Power' analyses power
and mechanisms
of societal control
through a narrative
arc that questions the
detrimentality of nuclear
weaponry.
Twitter/Instagram:
@anthony64120
PROSE
ASHLEY PEARSON
Ashley Pearson is a
Creative Writing and
Pre-Med Biochemistry
double major at Knox
College. Adopted from
South Korea in 2001,
Ashley has spent the
majority of her life
calling Monmouth,
Illinois home. Currently,
she divides her time
between Monmouth
and Galesburg Illinois.
Her short story
"Stork" focuses on the
definition home, the
disparities of childbirth,
and discrimination
amongst the world's
most vulnerable
population: babies.
"Small Town Summer"
takes inspiration from
Ashley's hometown and
is loosely inspired by
the people and places
the people and places
she has encountered
while growing up. Ashley
values bringing light
to important issues,
realistic relationships,
humor, and iconic
one-liners. Her love
for writing stems from
a vivid imagination
and encouragement
from friends, family,
professors, teachers, and
peers.
A SPECIAL
THANKS TO:
Iris Fu, who has united
our staff together during
the COVID-19 pandemic.
We would also like
to acknowledge that
the pandemic, while
devastating in its effects,
has been a source of
constant inspiration and
motivation for our staff.
BMDDIGITAL.COM
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ABOUT US
THe global youth review IS A literary
and arts MAGAZINE THAT is dedicated
to amplifying the voices of the youth,
especially those that are traditionally
marginalized.
THE
G L O B A L
Y O U T H
REVIEW
Founded in 2020, we use words as a vehicle
with which we unify and empower young
voices. Our mission is to combat divisive
narratives and bridge cultures, people,
and ideas together.
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THE GLOBAL YOUTH
REVIEW
ISSUE I
JAN 2021