ISSUE I: P(art) of the Soul

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

Cover Image: Unsplash

Magazine Designer: Sena Chang

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2 0

sel f-expression

CHAPTERS

Table of contents and a letter

from the founder --

INTRODUCTION

The Rationale: REASON--

LOGOS

The Spirited: HONOR--

THYMOS

The Appetite: DESIRE--

EROS

Featured contributors and

acknowledgements --

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

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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

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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F A C E

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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By RICHARD JAIMES

PROSE

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

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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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By SUNNY LIU

PROSE

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

Enigma

By Charles Nnanna

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

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.

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.

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Enigma

G 18

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.

By MILAD FAKURIAN

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Poetry

Keepin g

My Wits

ABOUT ME

By ROSALIND MORAN

By MIKE NORRIS

POETRY

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

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

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By MARIO CALVO

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POETRY

By DANIELE PELUSI

BRAIN

ROT

By ALEX SMITH

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

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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

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

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

immediately

collapsed on my knees while carrying a

heavy heart on married palms facing the heavens.

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

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

G 30

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

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

RITA FAHEY

Exploring art as a

form of catharsis and

self-expression

By JYOTSNA NAIR

By SHAUNAK DE

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

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—emotionlessfree 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

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?)

BMDDIGITAL.COM

By ALEXANDER BMDDIGITAL.COM JAWFOX

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r7Sq5uBTlc

can’t tell when the light begins

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

G 40

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.

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

PROSE

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.

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

G 48

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

By ARISA CHATTASA

BMDDIGITAL.COM

G 50

PROSE

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

G 51

BMDDIGITAL.COM

W O R T H

M O R E

POETRY

T H A N

T H E

W O R S T

W E ' V E

D O N E

W O R T H

M O R E

T H A N

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

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

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

PROSE

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

PROSE

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

PROSE

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

By JONATHAN MAR

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

BMDDIGITAL.COM

By EDUARDO BMDDIGITAL.COM SOARES

G 60

PROSE

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

WRIT

IS T

GEOME

OF T

P L A

ING

TTRY

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

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

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

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

G 66

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.

BMDDIGITAL.COM

THE GLOBAL YOUTH

REVIEW

ISSUE I

JAN 2021

ISSUE I: P(art) of the Soul

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