ISSUE III: Heritage

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H E R I T A G E 

ISSUE III FALL 2021 

T H E G L O B A L Y O U T H 

R E V I E W 

EDITORIAL STAFF 

Ibra Aamir 

Dua Aasim 

Abdulmueed Balogun 

Sena Chang 

Steven Christopher McKnight 

Lisa Degens 

Joshua Ellis 

Zo Estacio 

Ella Fox-Martens 

Rowan Graham 

Arianna Harris 

Talha Hasan 

Bianca J 

Ziqing Kuang 

Gabrielle Loren 

Krittika Majumder 

Ivaana Mitra C. 

Shreya Raj 

Avantika Singh 

Helena V 

Lake Vargas 

Yvanna Vien Tica 

George White 

CONTRIBUTORS 

Akinrinade Funminiyi Isaac 

Akshita Kumar 

Anoushka Srivastava 

Anthony Salandy 

Ashley Pearson 

Assia Messaoudi 

B. Pick 

Bukunmi Oyewole 

Chinonye Alilonu 

Glorious Kate Akpegah 

JP Legarte 

Kate Rowberry 

Kaya Dierks 

Kayleigh Sim 

Layan Dajani 

Makenna Dykstra 

Mandira Pattnaik 

Maria Alexza Hernandez 

Matt Hsu 

Nina Sikandar 

Olga Musial 

Olivia McCann 

Ross Walsh 

Sonakshi Srivastava 

Syna Majumder 

Trisha Reddy 

Zoe Friedland 

For advertising inquires contact: theglobalyouthreview@gmail.com 

Cover Art: Layan Dajani 

Magazine Designer: Sena Chang 

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THEGLOBALYOUTHREVIEW.COM

Table of contents and letters from the 

Executive Team — 

1 

INTRODUCTION 

TABLE OF 

CONTENTS 

THEGLOBALYOUTHREVIEW.COM | LITERARY MAGAZINE 

Artefacts and structures that uphold 

one’s culture — 

Stories that sew the fabric of 

heritage — 

3 

Personal narratives and traditional 

tales — 

Featured writers and 

artists — 

5 

2 

CULTURE 

4 

CLOSURE 

FABRIC 

STORIES 

20 

78 MANGOES 

WRITTEN BY AKSHITA KUMAR | An appreciation 

of Kumar’s heritage with sweet and 

juicy mangoes taking center stage 

42 

58 

66 

FROM EAST AND 

ELSEWHERE 

8 

13 

WRITTEN BY ASHLEY PEARSON | A 

collection of poetry surrounding Pearson’s 

origins 

FALLEN ANGEL 

YOUNGER MEMOIRS 

WRITTEN BY JP LEGARTE | An expansion 

of what Legarte considers to be parts of 

his rich hertiage 

PRETTY WOMAN 

WRITTEN BY SYNA MAJUMDER | A freeverse 

poem detailing feelings of isolation 

and otherness from one’s own family 

18 CHANDERI 

WRITTEN BY ANOUSHKA SRIVASTAVA | A 

story of traditions and threads inspired by 

the arts, aesthetics, and culture of India 

22 PAPILIONANTHE 

WRITTEN BY KAYLEIGH SIM | A poem 

inspired by Sim’s experience living far away 

from her homeland 

33 

WRITTEN BY MATT HSU | A portrait of a 

young adolescent, reimagined as a “fallen 

angel” 

61 ANTEBELLUM 

WRITTEN BY TRISHA REDDY | A fictional 

story drawing on fantastical elements to 

create a world strinkingly similar to ours 

INDULGENT SPICES 

WRITTEN BY ROSS WALSH | A piece seeking 

to explore the concepts of loss, grief, 

and the heritage left to us by previous 

generations 

COVER ART 

The cover art for this issue was 

created by Layan Dajani, a selftaught 

graphic designer from 

Palestine. 

82 CONTRIBUTORS 

A comprehensive list of all 27 contributors 

of the magazine, with biographies that 

provide further insight into their craft 

75 

BOG BODY 

WRITTEN BY NINA SIKANDAR | A fresh 

perspective on the connection between 

man and nature, combined with vivid 

imagery 

THEGLOBALYOUTHREVIEW.COM 

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TALHA HASAN 

Co-Founder, Instagram Manager 

Editor’s 

LETTER 

SENA CHANG 

Founder, Editor-in-Chief 

I 

n order to move forward and make progress, we must look at 

history. Why? Because our past defines us. Because the past 

is reality. The future doesn’t exist and we are not aware of the 

present. The only thing we are certain about is our past. 

The world is broader than our bedroom. Our minds consist of 

infinity. But do we ever sit back and think for a moment, How did we get to where 

we are now? The answer will take us to the past. The answer will make us think 

of those who did everything to let us be where we are. They are our ancestors. 

Our ancestors have thousands of years of history. They survived 

hundreds of thousands of disasters just so we can stand here—alive. Their 

legacy lives within us. We are the ultimate proof of everything they have made, 

fought, and done to exist. We are a reflection of our ancestors. What they have 

left for us to claim is our heritage. 

What compels me about the multifaceted 

concept that is heritage is 

the subtle weight it carries in one’s 

life; having endured world wars and 

pandemics, one’s heritage acts like 

an oasis within our stormy society. When reading 

through the works presented in this issue, these 

themes emerged again and again, yet in wholly 

different forms—perhaps that is what drew my 

staff and I to select these pieces. The emotive 

diaspora-themed poems. The photographs that 

capture the beautiful simplicity of one’s home. The 

rejecting and embracing of one’s childhood homes, 

conveyed through the beautiful simplicity of a few 

words. The many pieces I have encountered in this 

process have forced me to embrace and reflect 

upon my own heritage, and I dearly hope that the 

rawness and clarity of this issue is conveyed to 

you, dear reader. Without further ado, it is with 

great pleasure and honor that I present to you 

issue three of The Global Youth Review. 

We can’t deny our past. Our past includes both the good and the bad— 

we have to know both of them. If we know our past, we can fix our future. Our 

ancestry can’t be ignored. We have to move forward with our roots. We have 

to reclaim our heritage. Our heritage is what we are. Those who reject their 

heritage reject their ancestors. They reject themselves. If we don’t know our 

heritage, do we even know ourselves?

CHAPTER 

fabric 

FABRIC 

"We all participate in weaving the 

social fabric; we should therefore 

all participate in patching the fabric 

when it develops holes...’’ 

Anne C. Weisberg 


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CONTRIBUTORS 

Poetry 

YOUNGER 

MEMOIRS 

“Younger Memoirs” serves as an example of 

how individuals bring home with them within 

treasured memories of places, people, and 

experiences. 

Pr i o r 

recollections 

of younger 

memoirs 

decorate the 

current suspension 

of eventual thinking. 

For example, 

the hundred-degree Vegas-vacation 

heat mimics the Philippines’ sweet 

searing of the skin, 

extending further into the Asian- 

American 

amalgamation of my dynamic veins. 

As the airplane now lands on the Los 

Angeles runway 

of widespread beaches and stardom 

By JP LEGARTE 

city lights, 

the Chicago-suburb cul-de-sac 

intertwines 

with the recesses of my conscience. 

Once I step 

outside the airport gate into colder 

air, small children 

scurrying around imitate my 

adventurous excursions 

with the neighborhood kids who 

have since faded 

into familiar strangers. 

Restored senses of community stay 

embodied 

in the college friends that have torn 

this blanket 

of loneliness. Its threads once 

enveloped my fragile thoughts 

but are presently stripped into thinned shreds shifted 

away 

by spiraling breezes of assurances. Stringed 

from future aspirations, midnight reflections 

on the intricacies of our intersected lives 

beautify the endless conversations I have 

with these individuals, residing within 

the spaces of my soul reopened. 

Tell me what home, what heritage means 

to you. I could get lost in the various definitions 

that would blossom from the seeds of past 

navigations through the gardens in which 

we were planted. 

In another poem, I wrote about my belief 

that home materializes as elastic memory 

within mental snapshots we take. I discovered 

even imagined scenarios could become home 

if one day I choose to breathe life into them. 

Ultimately, our adorned reminiscence 

tirelessly shoulders home with us, if only 

we allow its integration to sustain 

our aging bodies. 


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M 

om was, “floss and brush” and tangled hair 

She was sunscreen 

and “No. No. NO! Butter knives in the electrical socket. 

No sugary cereal for breakfast 

and not too many movies.” 

She would set me on blankets 

while she made the Earth grow 

in the small plots of peoples’ gardens, 

and a Nancy Drew would play on a loop 

in an old cassette player. 

I would draw quietly 

and stay seated in the shade, 

while I learned to sit and think. 

My first time eating ice cream I asked her to heat it up 

and she warmed it into a sweet summer soup for me, 

in many ways she was the sun. 

Grandma was globs of glue and paint, 

nightgowns and high heels, 

and declarations of, 

“Mostly Italian.” 

She was pasta and slices of salami 

and folk songs in Spanish over strums of warm guitar. 

We went to the beach and 

the wind sang calm through the waves 

and she told me I could take a seashell home, 

told me I could hear the ocean inside of it 

even back in Colorado. 

We would paint the ocean waves we’d seen 

with purple and silver and turquoise tempera, and 

she would ask me how I felt when I looked at a painting. 

I wish I could remember what I said, 

but now when I see a painting, 

I see the waves and taste the melted ice cream, 

I smell thick layers of sunscreen, hear the garden growing, 

and feel the women that raised me. 

By OLIVIA MCCANN 

RAISED 

BY WOMEN

RACE 

But much as media champions 

An inclusivity trite, 

Tokenistic falsehoods arise 

As capitalist mediation births 

A compromise lavished on dominant screens, 

Never entire communities 

Or mighty institutions. 

For difference is celebrated 

RACE IDENTITY | ANTHONY SALANDY 

Antagonistic exchanges harbor 

Unknown dilemmas 

Where worlds are disrupted 

By momentary collapse 

Of lexicons civil, 

But harsh reality deems such pleasantries 

A rarity where ‘light skins’ know no true, 

Know no simple acceptance. 

For segmentation knows no tone, 

Nor no blood count 

Beyond arbitrary brackets 

That sever any decency. 

No, objectification finds deep rooting 

Where the ‘other’ is no longer a being, 

But rather a personified conceptualization 

That must succumb to banal labelling. 

IDENTITY 

PRETTY WOMAN | SYNA MAJUMDER 

that’s the name of a drink at the Sheraton, 

and it is called the ITC Rajputana now but 

none of the socialites care. cause even with 

names, pretty sells, old money stays. big 

red brick and the population form a hotel, all 

mojito-sipping millenials and many a half-drunk 

matriarch wearing a string of pearls and 

their poolboy. sundays here are as less of 

a status symbol than they are the reality, 

long nails reaching across tables at brunch 

to critique how fat your face has gotten. 

come on beta. live a little. have my dessert. 

there is a thing that lives in my head that 

loves them, the entire posse: the dubious 

bottles of chanel no. 5 on their dressers, 

the connections to alia and kareena and 

karishma. not priyanka, the bitchy betrayer. 

hello denial monkey, i say to it, condescending. 

hope you’re doing well. it stays there like the 

primates at ranthambore, waiting for twentyrupee 

lies from unsuspecting tourists, validation. 

it’s not picky. i think of the south delhi circles 

and i think of paris is burning--unapologetic, 

unknowing camp splashed across the marble 

floors of a five-star. drag queens performing to 

their NRI children and cheating husbands. 

there’s a smudge of glitter on my cheek where 

an aunty kissed it, and it’s bad makeup to the 

rest. i will never be a part of them, and i will never 

live without. we all have our burdens to bear. 

When ‘useful’ and discarded en masse when not, 

But much like dreams, 

Some are split between multiple, 

Stretched under mental fatigue 

And separated by the consistent thought 

Of never being quite good enough. 

But no one questions the caveats 

That sear silent soul searching 

Onto the footprints 

Of worlds that collide and disrupt 

Bygone assumptions of purity 

Or rather fears of the lurking unknown. 

PRETTY 

WOMAN

LA single grain of kosher salt slips 

Under my great-grandmother’s garnet 

As my father tells me to focus on the task at hand. 

POETRY 

LOX | B. PICK 

The tenderizer feels too warm for comfort, not 

In the same fashion as the fennel lodged beneath 

My fingernails. It’s tradition, or so he reminds me, as 

He strips the salmon’s skin. 

I am not a bad person. 

I pick up worms from scorching sidewalks 

And place them in puddles. 

“Every generation makes a modification. Leaving every inch of the flesh exposed 

Helps the flavours sink deeper. It’ll taste better this way, trust me.” 

Preparing herbs and preserves is easy. It’s harder to put your hands 

Onto something so cold, to expect it to return the love 

Of generations lost, of generations aching, of generations watching. 

I am not a good person. 

I pick up worms from scorching sidewalks 

And slice them into five equal segments. 

XPOETRY 

“Women rarely learn this recipe.” 

“Your hands are rougher than your brother’s.” 

There’s still salt stuck below the semi-precious stone, 

Creating a wound of its own -- somehow soothing. I place 

The hammer in my father’s hand, the grain finally slips out 

From beneath my great-grandmother’s ring and into his left palm. 

I am a good person. 

I’ll do this with my hands. 

Salmon can only be caught with lures, or so he reminds me. 

I ask him where this fish was from. He’ll ignore the question and 

Tell the same story again, the one about the fishing trip to Alaska. 

He’s not a fisherman, he never exaggerates. 

“Have I told you about the time a seal ate my salmon straight off the line?” 

“Have I told you about the time my dad threw my cooler -- fish and all -- into a trash 

bin at the airport in Anchorage?” 

“Have I told you about the time I gutted a salmon, then found a smaller salmon in its 

belly?” 

I am a bad person. 

These stories are mundane. 

I wonder if there’s a better way, as the tenderizer finally makes contact with the carcass. 

Every other family recipe leaves this part out -- my father 

Says that his father’s father added it to honour the fish the same way we might 

With other meats. This one is cured and gentler on the stomach. 


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POETRY 

POETRY 

tBURNING HAIBUN FOR MY 

ANCESTRY | KAYLEIGH SIM 

o my ancestors: burning incense & withered flowers like hungry ghosts of a soul. tell me: what 

is the unmaking of salvation but the forgetting of a heritage that i never fell in love with? when i was 

younger: i was everything & nothing of a girl who didn’t believe in ghosts. stolen rice wine 

& drunken sins, lotus offerings & flower crowns in my hair like a divine being. but tell me: that 

you worshipped me all the same, that you do still. that you forgive the last of your bloodline for 

the death of a dynasty. ghost month on the moon calendar & in your homeland: i wander your 

streets like a ghost town, rootless mandarin in dead tongues & chinese poetry in funerary 

requiems. tell me: that i don’t swallow ashes of paper money & taste regret like charred embers. 

tell me: that i can save myself from this unearthly fate, salvage my unholy shreds & stitch them 

into second comings: that it’s not too late, that i don’t feel your otherworldly fingertips on my 

strangled pulse in every crevice of my nightmares. & when you consume me: remind me of how 

i died a hungry ghost, of a dream in which you loved me all along. 

// 

to my ancestors: burning incense & withered flowers like hungry ghosts of a soul. tell me: what 

is the unmaking of salvation but the forgetting of a heritage that i never fell in love with? when i was 

younger: i was everything & nothing of a girl who didn’t believe in ghosts. stolen rice wine 

& drunken sins, lotus offerings & flower crowns in my hair like a divine being. but tell me: that 

you worshipped me all the same, that you do still. that you forgive the last of your bloodline for 

the death of a dynasty. ghost month on the moon calendar & in your homeland: i wander your 

streets like a ghost town, rootless mandarin in dead tongues & chinese poetry in funerary 

requiems. tell me: that i don’t swallow ashes of paper money & taste regret like charred embers. 

tell me: that i can save myself from this unearthly fate, salvage my unholy shreds & stitch them 

into second comings: that it’s not too late, that i don’t feel your otherworldly fingertips on my 

strangled pulse in every crevice of my nightmares. & when you consume me: remind me of how 

i died a hungry ghost, of a dream in which you loved me all along. 

// 

& what is love? but 

a ghost town, second comings: 

a dream all along. 


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NONFICTION 

NONFICTION 

CHAN 

D E R I 

A STORY OF TRADITIONS 

AND THREADS 

By ANOUSHKA SRIVASTAVA 

No sooner that we mention the name 

of ‘Chanderi’ and images of glossy, 

vibrant beautiful fabric appear vividly 

in front of our eyes. This popular 

choice of fabric that is thinner than air 

owes its namesake to a little hamlet in 

Madhya Pradesh and a rich chronicle 

of history and kingship that makes this 

sleepy town a time capsule of memory. 

Chanderi; situated in 

northern Madhya Pradesh, 36kms 

west of Lalitpur (Uttar Pradesh), is a 

tehsil of Guna district (MP). The city 

is a melting pot, a home to Muslims, 

Hindus and Jains. Chanderi was an 

important fortress and administrative 

center during the Malwa Sultanate 

(15 th century) and until a few years ago 

its fortifications were still standing. 

History of Chanderi Town 

The town of Chanderi 

also known in the past 

as Chandagiri and 

Chandrapuram, has witnessed 

the rise and fall of several 

dynasties but there is no actual 

consensus on when it was 

found, primarily due to lack of 

written evidence. One source 

attributes its foundation to 

King Ched, who is said to have 

ruled over this region around 

600 BC. Chanderi is also given 

a mention in the travelogues 

of the famous travelers, Al Beruni 

and Ibn Batuta. Another mention 

of Chanderi is during the Gurjara- 

Pratihara dynasty, when King Kirtipal 

shifted his capital to Bodhi Chanderi 

around the 11th Century AD. Not much 

is known about the Gurjara-Pratihara 

kings of the region around Chanderi, 

other than the information yielded 

on an inscription found at Chanderi. 

Chanderi was lost to the Delhi 

Sultanate when Ghiyauddin Balban, 

a minister of Sultan Naseeruddin, 

attacked Chanderi in 1251-52 AD. 

When Allauddin Khilji became the 

Sultan of Delhi, he hired one of his 

most trusted nobles, Malik Tamar 

Sultani, under whose rule Chanderi 

was taken over by the Tughlaq 

Dynasty. From 1351-1388 AD, Chanderi 

was a part of the Delhi Sultanate, 

after which it was seized by the Malwa 

Sultans who incorporated it into their 

domains. After Chanderi was annexed 

by the Malwa Sultanate, from 1512-1515 

AD, it was seized by Sikander Lodi 

Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate. Again 

in 1520 AD Chanderi was taken over 

by Rana Sangha, the king of Chittorh 

until 1528 AD, when the Mughal 

onslaught by Emperor Babur was 

victorious in capturing the fort at 

Chanderi. In 1605, Jehangir, on behalf 

of the Mughal court, handed over 

the rule of Chanderi to the Bundela 

Rajputs, who in turn ruled Chanderi 

until 1811 AD. In 1811 AD, Chanderi was 

‘‘No sooner that we mention 

the name of ‘Chanderi’ and 

images of glossy, vibrant 

beautiful fabric appear 

vividly in front of our eyes.’’ 

taken over by Colonel John Baptise 

Filose for Daulat Rao Scindia, who 

incorporated Chanderi in the Scindia 

estates. Kunwar Mardan Singh, one 

of the last rulers of the Bundelas 

annexed Chanderi from the Scindias 

in 1844 AD and made huge advances to 

restore Chanderi’s art, architecture, 

administration and political power. 

In 1858 AD, the English sent Sir Hugh 

Rose to capture Chanderi. In the siege, 

the English prevailed and Mardan 

Singh was incarcerated and sent 

to Vrindavan for the rest of his life. 

Chanderi sustained a lot in 

the 1857 uprising; it was plundered 

incessantly and partially burnt down. 

On December 12, 1860 AD, a treaty 

was signed between the British and 

the Scindias, and Chanderi was 

returned to the Gwalior estates. 

Vestiges of the past are present 

everywhere: ruins, old buildings, 

inscriptions which nobody is truly 

able to decipher; sati stones bespeak 

of a glorious ancient urban past. For 

Muslims, it goes back to the Muslim 

malwa sultanate. Jain inscriptions 

are even older. Hindus and Jains 

strongly believe that the ruins of 

Burhi Chanderi, 17 kms north of 

the present town, are evidence of 

the existence of a Hindu and Jain 

urban settlement there, prior to the 

advent of the Muslims. Many people 

in the city have heard about the 

description given in Ain-i-Akbari 

and believe in its accuracy: 

“Chanderi was one of the 

largest of ancient cities 

and possesses a stone fort. 

It contains 14,000 stone 

houses, 384 markets, 360 

spacious caravanserais and 

12,000 mosques.” (Abu’l- 

Fazl ibn Mubarak, 1590) 

Spinning Love- Chanderi 

Fabric 

Nestled between the low 

and humble hills of the 

Vindhyachal ranges, the town of 

Chanderi has not only been a cradle 

of many historical events but also of 

a rich tradition of Chanderi saris, 

the beauty of which lies in its finesse, 

softness and transparency. Chanderi 

is known to have its origin back in 

the Vedic Period, and is believed to 

have been founded by Lord Krishna’s 

cousin, Shishupal. The Chanderi 

produces three kinds of fabrics: 

pure Silk, Chanderi cotton and silk 

cotton. The motifs have come a long 

way from the traditional coin, floral 

and peacocks to the geometrics. 

In the year 1910, the royal 

family of Scindia brought the 

Chanderi sari under their patronage 


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NONFICTION 

POETRY 

and during period the gold thread 

motif was used in the main body of 

the cotton muslin saree for the first 

time. It also led to the introduction 

of the silk yarn and over the years 

dobby and jacquard use came into 

existence. Some of the various 

beautifully striking motifs include 

‘Nalferma, ‘Dandidar, ‘Chatai’, 

‘Jangla’, Mehndi wale haath’ etc. 

Chanderi was always 

woven using hand-spun cotton 

warps and wefts. It was spun as fine 

as 300 counts, and was as prized 

amongst cotton fabrics as the 

famed muslins of Dhaka. The 

British imported cheaper 120- 

to-200 count cotton, which 

greatly eroded the market for 

the more expensive Chanderi 

cloth. Referred to as ‘woven air’ 

because of its transparency and 

the sheer texture of the fabric, 

Chanderi saris are known for 

their light weight and glossy 

texture that is different from 

any other textile woven or 

produced in the country. 

They owe this characteristic 

to the high-quality and extra 

fine yarns that are used in 

weaving. The yarn used to 

weave Chanderi fabric doesn’t 

go through the degumming 

process to prevent breakage 

during weaving, giving the 

fabric its unique shine and 

texture. 

There are three main 

categories of saris based on the 

material used. The product ranges 

from cotton to pure silk, i.e., silk by 

silk, silk by cotton, cotton by cotton 

and zari by silk. This cluster is known 

for producing the most intricate 

figured effects by jala or harness 

which are now done by dobby and 

jacquard, fine cotton counts and 

deniers, a combination of strong 

colours as well as muted tones. The 

buttis on the fabric are hand-woven 

on handloom. The buttis are made 

by use of needles. The number of 

needles used depends upon the 

number of buttis and its size. For 

each butti a separate needle is 

used. The design layout has been 

undergoing some changes to match 

demand, but it remains deficient on 

several accounts. 

The Chanderi material 

is now being used to make stoles, 

scarves, cushions, dupattas, 

draperies, and suit material. Safas 

or long scarfs for weddings and 

cotton pagris have also been a 

prominent product of this cluster 

and they are still adorned with the 

royal and elite families of Indore and 

Gwalior. About 25 to 30 years ago, the 

Jacquard mechanism for the border 

of Chanderi saris was introduced 

in Chanderi by the artisans from 

Banaras who also introduced the 

rolling log at the same time. The sling 

mechanism for carrying the shuttle 

across the warp was introduced by 

artisans from Nagpur in the 1960s. 

Before that, an animal horn with 

a hole at its tip was used for taking 

the weft threads across the warp 

threads. 

The traditional product 

designs of the cluster can be broadly 

classified as follows: 

- Nalferma silk designs wove in the 

body with 3 shuttles and 2 weavers. 

- Dandidaar bamboo striped border 

with motifs. 

- Chatai geometrical border with coin 

motifs, florals. 

- Jangla designs inspired by historical 

relics. 

- Mehendi wale haath design inspired 

by culture uses and extra warp. 

- Sooraj Mukhi and Sadda 

Suhaghan Raho saree for 

weddings* 

*(warp 20/22 denier silk and weft 

100s cotton) 

Chanderi silk’s profit 

margins are increasing steadily 

to this day, from apparel to home 

decor. The Rajwada collection 

of Fabindia is an ode to this 

fabulous textile. 

They have used the rich 

Chanderi fabric as it never 

goes out of style; plus, it adds 

that much-needed element of 

warmth to the rooms during 

winters. Along with product 

diversity, the artisans and Seths 

have started experimenting 

and recycling the old stock of 

their products by introducing 

block printing and batik on the 

Chanderi fabrics. 

A fabric is a spun story that 

has seen the rise and fall of many 

dynasties and wrapped itself snugly, 

brilliantly and gloriously on the 

bodies of people and lives that make 

it and wear it. 

I hope that these sun-kissed 

bricks charm you with their old 

stories and magnificent architecture 

against the setting sun, as you rush 

for the night market in the sleepy 

town of Chanderi. 

This piece previously appeared in 

Enroute Indian History. 

it always begins with light 

fluorescence we drown in 

we hide in 

we are here for a reason 

we have left something 

MA’S 

BODIES, 

THOSE LOST AND FOUND IN THE 

DELI DEPARTMENT 

will you help us retrieve it? 

perhaps it’s getting late already 

perhaps you should go 

you’re not worried they’ll catch you? 

us? oh, don’t worry, we are native to the fruit 

department 

we’ve lost a body 

popped it in the cart like canned tomatoes 

do you like red sauce? can I get a look inside 

your can? 

well, maybe some other time 

you see, 

you don’t come here to buy the things you need 

you come to buy the things you’ve lost 

you think she’s been sold already? 

but it is not yet morning 

how often do you buy a body? 

a high-neck sweater and hair like Brother’s 

yes, you. you don’t like it when I call you that? 

why did you leave her here in the first place? 

you cannot punish people for your genes 

and besides, it is I that’s too much Ma and too little me. 

By OLGA MUSIAL 

sorry, 

are you the guard? 

do you ever nap 

in the deli department? 

maybe we’ve left her 

by the vegetables 

oh, the cart doesn’t work 

you have to force it through the tiles 

this is how you assert dominance 

over it and over Ma’s body 

we’ll pop pennies from our pockets 

a handful of buttons in gold marker 

you think that’s enough? 

you think this is the price of Ma? 

we’re not just buying the body; the insides have 

gotten lost too 

stick her palm to the refrigerators, see if it fits 

with the fish fingers 

a home is a hole, and we are native to brightness 

do you believe it? I don’t. 

Ma says 

in the end 

we can never be native 

to where we weren’t born. 


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POETRY 

POETRY 

dehydrated 

MEMORIES 

* 

A profound exploration of 

adolescence and maturity, through 

the lens of environmental change 

By KATE ROWBERRY 

By KAYLEIGH SIM 

singapore i plant your flower on this american soil because i believe you still love 

me, watch it bloom into lilac laces & lavender ties like purple-stained promises. on my 

nightstand, our romance is beautiful but not exotic: night falls & i dream, drunk on 

your orchid’s faintly elegant aroma. midnight & i wake to the smell of death on my 

pillow: i caress a petal in my palm and it wilts like drunken tea leaves, reach for another 

& it crumbles like stardust between my trembling fingertips. singapore i am desperate, 

drowning your ruins in tears of coconut milk & sugarcane essence, deluging its petals in 

eyelashes of pandan extract but i still can’t shake the pungent perfume of decay. & now 

i am plunging fingertips like knives into this asian culture of a soil, hungry to revive my 

ancestry, to unearth my roots with my own lucid eyes, emerging with earth-filled nails & 

soiled knuckles, tangled roots entwining ruthlessly against my strangled pulse & i am 

merciless, eyes bloodshot, ripping your roots into unholy threads, your flower into 

unearthly ribbons & they scatter into my dark hair, my white sheets, my tattered lace 

nightdress. singapore if i’m mad i am madly in love-- & after, i bury america’s green 

card & hope it flowers into something earthly, taste fresh salt on my tongue & relish the 

metallic aroma of blood. yes i drink flower wine by the brim but no, i can never forget 

that i killed a flower like a breathing being, & now i am holding the wilted shreds of 

your orchid to my bleeding heart & lying to myself that no, i am not a murderer, & 

whispering through salt water: 

my beloved homeland, do you still love me? 

of course, i imagine you say. 

of course i do. 

*papilionanthe is the botanical name of the national flower of singapore. it is sometimes referred to as the 

hybrid orchid, vanda miss joaquim, the singapore orchid, or papilionanthe miss joaquim. 


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*** 

i am from the golden state. 

rather, 

it’s the golden-brown state. 

a vernal emerald 

briefly reigns the sierra foothills, 

soon subdued by 

a paper-bag shade of 

thirsty. 

thermometers break 

during the oven summers. 

it’s only april 

when temperatures begin to look like 

good grades 

in degrees fahrenheit. 

91. 96. 103. 108. 112. 

*** 

some years, 

folsom lake vanishes, 

and the water is a hairline, receding. 

the heat endures, revealing more 

desiccated shore, and the ruined, 

usually 

engulfed miners’ town 

emerges. 

it was flooded decades ago to make a 

perpetually 

untenanted reservoir. 

i visited the town in 2014, two years 

into the second californian drought 

in my lifetime. 

as i walked amidst stone walls 

P 

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settled deep into the parched lake 

bed, 

my brother told me i was drowning: 

standing 

tens of feet under 

the lake’s expected surface. 

*** 

i was in junior high 

when paradise became a chimney, 

exhaling smoke from the very 

buildings. 

the scorched acres and lost lives 

were reduced to fearsome statistics 

flashing across tv screens. 

this wildfire led to indoor gym class, 

as if we could hide from the air 

quality index: unhealthy. 

i never had school closed for 

a snow day, but 

classes were canceled 

that november, when the sky was 

smudged as brown as the june plants 

and 

as gray as our negligent rain clouds. 

they called it a smoke day. 

*** 


NONFICTION 

Prose 

LETTERS 

FROM HOME 

A hybrid prose piece of sorts, Hernandez’s 

piece is dedicated to the past, present, and 

future people of the Philippines. 

By MARIA ALEXZA HERNANDEZ 

It was summer. Actually, it was always summer. 

They landed on our beaches dressed in red, white, and gold. I had never seen their kind before with 

skin so pale they burned red. 

Their mirth spoke of adventure and riches from distant lands, but their eyes were empty, their 

laughter hollow. While they were adorned in gold, we were crowned in flowers. 


It is not easy to trust and befriend a man, but still, we welcomed them into our arms. With an 

embrace, they too were crowned with our waling-walings. 1 

Only much later would I ask myself that burning question. 

P 

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How had we fallen into the hands of the white man? 

24 

THE HOME THAT I’VE 

NEVER BEEN TO | LAYAN 

DAJANI

PROSE 

PROSE 

LETTERS 

FROM 

HOME 

Dear God, 

Are You there? Can You hear me? Have You forsaken me? 

I pray to You the same way my mother taught me; hands 

clasped, fingers interlocked, 

and a Crucifix held tightly to my lips. It is bitter, the wood. Years 

of sweat and tears, unheard prayers, and fears. The bitter taste of 

desperation. 

But I am not my mother. I do not come to You for forgiveness. 

I do not come to You 

to beg. You are the smiling crescent of the night, the burning star 

come morning light. 

Something to see and something to behold. Even as I reach outward 

and inward, in search of 

You, I know that You will never answer my call. 

If I were to undress my thoughts and lay them to You as they 

are, You might hate me, 

even punish me for my honesty. 

Dear God, 

I write to You now at the dawn of my arrival to what 

they call the Land of the Free. My mother always dreamed of 

this day. For me or for her, I’ll never know. What matters now 

is the world I am yet to see and the opportunities I am yet to 

have. In the end, all of this will be for her. 

The relentless downpour that had cast us adrift had 

finally settled. The clouds had parted, and the day, it seemed, 

would be glorious. For there she was, standing upon her 

throne, a beacon of hope for the lost and exiled. On the lone 

island was a copper goddess, and her thorny crown rising 

from the horizon, her arm extended as if to say, “Come here 

my children.” 

I can picture it now. I arrive on the shore, safe and 

sound, to a great big city. The sun doesn’t burn, and the 

mosquitoes don’t bite. There’s an inviting warmth, not a 

blistering heat. The water is clean. There’s food, always. And 

the people! They’re kind and well-mannered. They greet you 

on the streets and welcome you into their homes. We laugh 

and we smile, and all is well. It’ll be just like the postcards in 

my mother’s tin. 

The birds are leaving. 

The day was still, the silence almost deafening. The horizon 

wavered in the distance. Low-lying clouds dotted the sky, sailing 

along the winds. 

Everything has changed whether it be from the sway of the 

trees, the scent of the leaves, or the sound of the waves. 

Nothing in this world is ever the same, that I know, but this… 

this is different. There is an unbearable emptiness to the land. 

The anito 2 no longer visit. They are fickle, yes, but never like 

this. Gold, sugar cane, rice, and more. What else is there left to 

give? Have we made them angry? Have we made Him angry? 

We are at the mercy of 

Bathala 3 , and I fear of His wrath and fury. 

I am not alone in my fears for even the people know. 

Hushed voices fill the night as the women whisper prayers to the winds. Their suspicions frighten the men who 

sharpen their spears. By sundown, they bring with them the fruits of their labour, but it is not enough, it is never 

enough. 

Earth, sky, and sea, He has created this world and He has the power to end it. We are His playthings, grateful to be 

alive. But we are also His companions. Without us He is alone and without Him we are nothing. 

Bathala have mercy. 

We waited along the sand. For what, I do not know. But we 

waited. The sun burned our bodies, and the heat dried our 

tongues but still we waited. 

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, 

The Lord is with you. 

Blessed are you among women, 

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. 5 

I hummed a prayer under my breath. 

Tulong-tulong. 

Mga anito ng langit at lupa, 

Pakinggan ninyo ang sigaw ng 

Aking puso at illigtas niyo po 

Kami sa panganib ng 

Kinabukasan. 

Tulong-tulong… 4 


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PROSE 

PROSE 

Dear God, 

There is a knot in my stomach, a lump in my throat. I am 

uneasy and anxious for the future. Tomorrow I will meet my employer. 

Please give me Your blessing for the days ahead. I trust in Your 

grace. 

They swarmed our beaches in droves, like moths to a flame. Flashes of 

red, white, and gold; steel against steel. They marched onto our land— 

one step, two step—carrying a white banner painted with red. I heard 

the spirits wail in agony as they stabbed into the earth. 

By nightfall, the sky was set ablaze, our villages razed to the ground. 

Ravished by the burning flames, eyes glazed over, they stared deep into 

the ashes of our homes. I stifled a sob as the fire scorched my soul. 

Our men remained scattered on the ground in bursts of flesh and bone, 

charred to the core. Those that survived suffered just the same. 

We were fooled. They had pitied us, nothing more. Clothed us, fed us… 

loved us. We welcomed them into our arms, onto our land. We shared 

in their adventure and their zeal, they shared in our laughter and our 

joy. We learned of their ways, and they learned of ours. We taught them 

of our god and our spirits and they taught us of their coin. We prayed 

beside them in mass, shared in their bread, and spoke of their God. 

But now they burn the world at our feet and hang us from the trees. 

Dear God, 

I met him today. He seemed nice and kind and gentle. He was friendly and straight-forward. I’ve 

never met a man who stared at me so… 

I’m to meet him tomorrow again. This time, he said to dress nicely. He likes his girls nice and clean, 

whatever that means. 

Dear God, 

Easy, he said. 

Dear God, 

My mother would be ashamed. 

The mottled bruises, the split on my lip. He promised me kindness for my services… 

The first night he had kissed me. The second he had ravished me and the third he 

had… 

Dear God, 

$200 – more than I’ve ever made in a month. I hope she will be proud. 


P 

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LETTERS 

FROM HOME 

Dear God, 

Here I am in the House of God. It hurts to pray. When I kneel the leather stings and 

the people stare but at least my skin is slowly healing. 

Dear God, 

As I lay here in the dark—battered and bruised, cold and alone—I can only think of my 

mother. 

Anak 6 , she had said, holding my hands to her heart. She had looked me in the eyes, 

her glistening eyes. They were like almonds. A deep, deep brown. I never noticed that before. 

Actually…there were many things I never noticed. Like the way her eyes wrinkled when she 

smiled or how her gentle hands pruned in the water, weathered from years of work. Or even 

when her breath rattled in her sleep with the uneven rise and fall of her chest. She would hold 

my arm without a sound. Old age, she said. 

We cried together that night. As I fell asleep in her arms, she held me like a newborn, 

cooing and singing to me like before. For a moment, I could forget the clawing feeling in my 

chest and the voices begging me to stay. 

By morning, she had kissed me goodbye. Her hands, brittle and weak, soft to the 

touch, had caressed my tear-stained cheeks. Salamat sa lahat anak. 7 

P 

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One. 

Two. 

Three. 

Three lashes—the most they allowed. Benevolence, they said. 

We once trusted in the white man. But, after pillaging our homes, one 

by one, we were rounded up like animals. They were never satisfied with 

those that remained. 

The crackle of leather, the flashing of light, the clap of thunder. The 

storm had finally arrived. 

My husband fell to the ground. Perhaps I had 

Screamed. 

Red droplets and salty tears dotted the soil. Bursting veins against 

mottled skin. 

He leaned into my caress as I cradled him to sleep—like father, like son. 

The waling-walings would bloom over his grave come spring. 

As I fell to my knees, I looked to the sky. 


PROSE 

PROSE 

Mother, do you see me from above? 

Bathala, I am sorry for what You see. 

Here I am naked, for You to behold, 

To criticise and chastise. 

God, I am sorry for what You see. 

about 

how everyone 

wants to be 

This is not what we planned, 

This is not what she wanted. 

We befriended the white man and trusted in him, 

By SYNA MAJUMDER 

Footnotes 

1 

Waling-waling: An orchid species native to the 

Philippines, particularly in Mindanao, and is considered one 

of the national symbols of the Philippines. It is known to be 

worshipped by the Bagobo tribe as a diwata (a spirit guarding 

nature). 

2 

Anito: ancestor spirits and nature deities 

worshipped by indigenous Filipinos. 

3 

Bathala: Supreme being and ruler from an ancient 

Tagalog indigenous religion. After the proliferation of 

Christianity, Bathala would become synonymous to Diyos 

(Christian God). 

4 

Help-help / Spirits of heaven and earth, / Hear the 

cries of my heart, and / Save us from the perils of tomorrow. 

/ Help-help… 

5 

A traditional Catholic prayer often recited during 

rosary as penance and is addressed to the Virgin Mary to 

pray on behalf of sinners to God. 

6 

Anak: A Tagalog term of endearment for your 

child. This can refer to your son/daughter. 

7 

Thank you for everything, anak. 

But in return he repays me in 

Blood. 

W 

hen in Rome, do as the Romans do. we take 

that very seriously here, in a private school 

set jewel-like at the very back of the city, 

beliefs and social media in a cardboard box 

marked with grade boundaries. I haven’t been 

here for a long time. I won’t be here for a good one. 

what happens in Vegas stays there and I am still 

thinking about shovels and the skeletons of lovers 

with my faces on them. I have been playing the same 

song for five hours. come on, turn to me, tell me I 

can stop thinking about the national partition again. 

my parents’ room is colder than mine. I am not a patriot. 

the road to Damascus is lined with propaganda, and 

none of my thoughts are mine, ever, clouded with ink 

and the weight of my grandmother’s eyes on my neck. 

these are not things I know to be real: if they could they 

would bury me in familial warmth and pale white affection 

and burn me on wood made up of their best wishes for me. 

I am my own Saigon moment out of history class, looking 

at a life spiral down into newness. I don’t write in the language 

I was born around. I don’t believe in the gods that I write about. 

it’s like this: if an engine failure occurs while taking off, 

a plane must get airborne. it’s like this: I am going to be 

drunk at prom if it ever happens, and I will have my father’s knife. 

never meet your heroes, your admirers or your Waterloo. 

lattes are good enough, but in my head I am scraping 

off the burnt skin of my fingers from a filter coffee tumbler. 

this is elitism, fear, a last-ditch attempt at self-construction: 

that and a failed Instagram post. normal is what normal cries to. 

life’s not bad. I am just one minute away from home. 


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BY 

ZOE FRIEDLAND 

PROSE 

By ROSS WALSH 

mother memories 

you speak the language of hyperbole. 

i speak a plum inside a snowball. you 

part crowds 

like moses like ticks scuttling 

past fingernailed teeth like butter 

with a hot knife well you said my gums 

are divine. a grin like citrus in your palm 

as the pill bottle tips thirty-two teeth, lot’s wife 

and yes, you swallow me. 

a memory warship taking on water in port 

you 

as truth 

i take 

at your word what’s a word to your lips maybe 

we can learn to live like this. it’s not like the horses 

will ever breastroke easy 

through the board but sometimes i can’t 

stand 

my hands like hummingbirds its needless 

what’s a tone indicator its needed 

to a finger to a lip what’s a lip 

a verse sardined inside a muscle what’s a mussel 

a bivalve a bivalve to a tongue a hinging 

text a string a cut. i’ve started dicing onions 

when i cry i 

need an excuse you’re going 

to get tired of holding me soon 

For Gaga. 

A perfumed candle melts as I write, 

the 

purple wax pooling around the wick 

as 

it burns so high and so bright and 

so fast. 

Indulgent Spices. That’s the scent. 

I can 

only assume my grandmother 

bought it. 

My grandad was not an indulgent 

man. 

I can imagine him glancing up from 

his newspaper towards the shelf 

where the 

candle lay, mulling over the 

prospect 

-er than his. And when I got the call 

of 

a Monday afternoon, my brother ex- 

-plaining that our grandad passed 

away last 

‘‘One of the problems with 

candles, similar to loved 

ones, is that they do not last 

forever.’’ 

night, I was glad. In his final weeks 

the 

illness spread through him like raw 

sewage in- 

-to the defenceless sea. But beyond 

the 

pain flowing through his body, the 

pain he 

must have felt for years was finally 

done. 

He could once again embrace her. 

His wife. 

My grandparents, together again at 

last. So now I own the candle that 

sat 

unused on his bookshelf, and I 

cannot 

of pressing a flame to the wick and 

then 

breathing in the smell his wife was 

fond of. 

Then, he shakes his head and 

returns to that 

day’s headlines. Candles burn out 

in a way 

his love for my grandmother never 

did. 

Her wick was evidently a bit shorthelp 

but wonder; am I wrong to burn 

it? 

Am I indulging myself by breathing 

in the scent? Can I be honouring his 

memory by putting this keepsake to 

its intended use? Or am I proving 

myself to have less fortitude than my 

grandad, who was made melancholic 

by 

memories of his wife but still held on 

to them? One of the problems with 

candles, 

similar to loved ones, is that they do 

not last forever. I will never see 

grandad at another Christmas 

dinner, 

complaining about our refusal to 

attend Mass the next morning, or 

slipping 

me money behind my parents’ backs. 

I 

will hold on to all those memories, 

though, 

and so even when this perfumed 

candle 

burns out I will keep them alive and 

bright. 


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CHAPTER 

culture 

CULTURE 

‘‘If we are to preserve culture, we must 

continue to create it.’’ 

Johan Huizinga 

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Prose 

THE CHART 

OF 

OUR 

lives 

‘‘This story originally appeared in 

October Hill Magazine. It is drawn 

from diasporic experiences, her own 

as well as of others.’’ 

By MANDIRA PATTNAIK 

SUNSET IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD | 

GLORIOUS KATE AKPEGAH 

O 

ur people are firm believers of destiny. We do not argue with fate. 

Destiny got us here, we must be grateful, Dad tells us. It’s also our 

destiny that, come fall, we’ll be leaving Montclair, New Jersey, and back 

to where our parents came from. Between now and fall, we — Millie, 

Lily, and I — have all the time to make opportunities out of choices, 

hedged as we are between the American way of life and our island of a Home. So, we 

plan ahead. 

With Dad home for dinner, Mum lets us slice and grind not because she wants 

us, girls, to have fun in the kitchen but because she could do with some help. Besides, 

she says, we girls from India must learn the art of cooking for any of us, to have any 

chance of getting married back home. Marrying suitable boys in Jalandhar, with whom, 

Mum understands as well as we do, we’ll have no common associations, is part of our 

destinies. 

Millie peels the ginger; Lily uses the mortar and pestle to grind nine pods 

of garlic, three teaspoons of coriander, and half a cup of sliced onions. Our folks hold 

on to whatever they can from back home — the heavy stone mortar and pestle is one 

of them. I can’t believe they carried it here. Holding a steel Katori, I am ready to add 

spoonful of water when Lily’s spice pastes become too dry. 

When the batches are done, we put them in line, like on a conveyor belt, for 

Mum to put in quick succession into the wok on high heat. Mum binds us to the kitchen 

until the process is over, but we obey without questions, it is part of our upbringing, 

until we can tweak the course of our lives. 

The chicken curry—thick, red, with its grease separating neatly—spreads its 

P 

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PROSE 

PROSE 

aroma like a phantom across our tiny 

home. We are salivating; but I see 

Mum stern as ever, her steely eyes on 

the wok, stirring with vigor. It leaves 

me to wonder at the control she has on 

the combination of her gustatory and 

olfactory nerves in her orbital frontal 

cortex, as much as on us sisters. 

We look at each other, await 

her permission to disperse. Our ears 

are on the TV in the living room Dad 

is watching after driving his Ford 

Crown Victoria egg-yolk yellow cab 

all day. Or so we think; unless he’s 

sculpting his earnings, chiseling away 

the expenses to carve out his savings. 

Barely a hundred-and-a half tonight, 

said he when he came back tonight. 

He needn’t have—that showed on his 

face. The medallion, partly financed 

by his father, has already changed 

hands. Dad’s destiny has unfolded 

as the opposite of those behind the 

taxicab’s Plexiglas partition window. 

Mum works in a seveneleven 

here—her destiny too—from 

blowing into a clay oven in the family 

kitchen when she was a girl like us in 

Ludhiana. The kitchen she says was so 

big, it was half our home. 

We sometimes hate this 

home, stinking as it does with the 

smells of spices and curries; the 

reason why we never made friends 

who might want to pop in. Guys who 

judge us, girls who are curious in an 

uncomfortable way. 

Millie never had boyfriends, 

though one boy from High School 

asked her out. She was so scared Mum 

would find out that we made our own 

defense squad — Sisters’ Alert — and 

stuck to Millie like glue. The boy never 

approached her again. Or so we think. 

Unless the boy had guts to defy odds 

and Millie leads a secret life we’re not 

aware of. 

Lily’s different, letting Alan 

kiss her right after Sisters’ Alert 

disbanded. 

I am lucky to have both their 

examples ahead of me! 

When the chicken curry 

boils, Lily and I, having been granted 

leave, slip out into our dark backyard. 

Ghostly bushes cluster beneath the 

kitchen window sill, smelling, oddly, 

of trash and moss, but we’ve, kind 

of, begun to love it — the smell of 

escapades we sisters steal, whenever 

we can. We fill our lungs. Assimilate 

whatever we can before we miss them 

forever. 

Alan doesn’t know we’re 

leaving. Lily tells me how, before 

he went aboard the USS Virginia a 

fortnight ago, he touched her smooth 

brown skin, played with her gorgeous 

black hair. She says he loves the way 

she smells, curry and flaming oil. 

Lily takes out a cigarette 

she’s smuggled out, despite Mum, 

and lights up. She doesn’t exhale the 

smoke, telling me it is part of what 

she’ll carry back. She also tells me 

Allan will not be a part of her plans 

anymore. 

There’s a Harvest Moon in the 

night sky; a rare Friday the 13th too. I 

watch Lily closely. Her full rounded 

bosom heaves. Allan churns like an 

apparition in her heart, the flavors of 

his lips on her taste buds. He will singe 

her chest and burn her capillaries 

little by little. Lily, I presume, will stay 

truest to her destiny. 

*** 

Our aunt’s visiting us. First 

time in years. When she’s around, we 

try to be as invisible as possible, fold 

ourselves like picnic chairs. And pay 

respects. She’s a paternal aunt and 

we treat our father’s lineage more 

seriously than our mother’s, so her 

one stare suffices to cover our knees. 

Mum uses her scarf to cover her head 

at home. 

Aunt sits under the warm sun 

making up for lost time she couldn’t 

be here. She’s a caregiver at a home 

for the elderly in Connecticut. 

A pug trespassed our 

front yard and vandalized Mum’s 

bougainvillea couple of months ago, 

I gave it a chase until it ran into our 

neighbor Ratul’s house. Nobody 

doubted anything when I returned 

flushed, hair awry and the bangle on 

my left hand missing. It was part of 

our plan to send the pug in, Ratul’s 

and mine, to snatch some moments 

together, out of our regimented lives. 

Rest of Ratul’s plans on 

how to make my parents abort their 

exodus plan—somehow, anyhow— is 

concealed in his heart. My plans hinge 

on that one lucky offer from colleges 

I’d applied secretly. Hope they come 

just in the nick of time. 

Aunt shouts, ‘Your hair isn’t 

in braids!’ 

‘Sorry, Aunt Jasleen, I’ll be 

back and you can help me braid, 

getting you some mustard mango 

pickle from Aunt Preet next-door, in a 

jiffy.’ I say before jumping over the low 

bushes and disappearing into Ratul’s 

home before she can retort. 

Ratul rests his arm on my 

shoulder as we sneak out and walk 

down Bloomfield Avenue. He talks 

about his summer course. I survey 

his face—the lines that jiggle when 

he frowns, his firm jaw, and his 

lips. I barely hear him; yearning 

to pull him closer, think we could 

kiss soon, his lips on mine. Like 

last Friday. 

We near Chatni BYOB. 

Ratul waits tables here part-time to 

fund his education. Like destinies, 

we are firm believers in education. 

Degrees take us places. The street 

already smells of the familiar pickles 

and hand-tossed bread. Aromas are 

like apparitions too, following us 

wherever we are. 

Ratul doesn’t kiss, we hug 

like friends. 

I turn disappointed and back 

to my family which is busy ferreting 

about their lives for elusive, unknown 

destinies. 

*** 

Things change rapidly a week 

before we’re to board the Air India 

flight from Newark. On a shopping 

trip two blocks away from our home, 

Lily is smothered by a mini van that 

appeared from nowhere. Mum firmly 

curses her fate, not the driver. She 

is hurt so badly she has fractures 

at three places in her right leg. The 

immediate diagnosis is that she may 

not be able to walk again. Besides, 

she is traumatized—can’t recognize 

us. Doctors say that’ll change as 

the incident plays in her head over 

and over, seeps into her stunned 

neurons and she finally accepts it. 

Dad is devastated. He makes more 

and more cuts and bruises on his 

notepad—he’s trying to carve out 

escapes from our entrapment. Our 

imminent migration is in disarray, 

his livelihood is uncertain and his 

daughters’ marriages under a cloud. 

Mum is worried — the cuts he makes 

shouldn’t travel from paper to his 

wrinkled skin. She always broods over 

the subject. Millie takes over charge 

of both home and outside. I’m awed 

‘‘The glance we share speaks 

volumes — the one you’d share 

when you know someone inside 

out.’’ 

by her tenacity and help her as much 

as I can. We sisters, Millie and I, grow 

closer to each other more than at any 

point in our lives. It is only with her 

that I share that my offer letter from 

college is under the mattress in my 

room. 

Sometime during the second 

week after her accident, Lily makes a 

miraculous recovery. From behind the 

glass partition, we see her propped up 

by pillows on her hospital bed. Her 

face glistens in the sunshine filtering 

in from the window to her left, the 

stitches on her forehead and cheeks 

like victory posts. 

When we enter the room, 

she shrieks ‘Dad!’ I had never seen 

Dad cry so much. We gather around 

her and Dad hugs us like a bear. Our 

family has never felt more tightly knit 

in years. None of our eyes are dry. 

Soon, Lily is allowed visitors. 

Our neighbors visit her. Ratul and 

his parents come. It was destiny that 

his parents and mine should meet in 

a hospital room for the first time. In 

our families, despite the severance 

from our roots through time and 

geography, it is important that we gel 

well before the boy and girl tie the 

nuptial knot. Ratul and I watch closely 

and despite our palpitations, they 

bond satisfactorily. We look at each 

other like we’ve crossed our prelims. 

The glance we share speaks volumes 

— the one you’d share when you know 

someone inside out. 

From the next week or so, 

whenever Millie and I are at the 

hospital, I find her eyes roving about 

the reception area and over the 

corridor. Her eyes follow the junior 

interns as they walk in bunches 

towards their lecture hall. It is 

only when days pass that the most 

obvious gets to me. That boy from 

High School is here, a medical 

intern, and he’s stealing shy 

glances at Millie. She’s destined to 

marry Doctor Sanjeev Gowda two 

years later. 

He’s around us the next time 

we’re in a family hug. 


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P 

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PROSE 

P 

POST 

SCRIPT 

By MANDIRA PATTNAIK 

A POSTCRIPT TO ‘‘THE CHART OF 

OUR LIVES’’ 

That fall came and passed us by. We brown 

girls charted the courses of their lives, rowed on high 

turbulent seas, and ducked when the storms came. 

We’ve circumvented odds, wrapped our selfhoods 

with the fine tapestry of common pleasures. 

Lily is in Jalandhar with Mum and Dad. 

She is off her wheelchair and takes long walks over 

the mud ridges around vibrant yellow mustard fields 

with Dad. Mum dotes on them, Lily tells me. Lily 

can’t believe how Mum, the fiery one we knew, is 

so mellowed down: she spends hours embroidering 

Lily’s kurta with neat little daisies. She’s calmer and 

happier. And no, they’re not scouting for grooms for 

Lily yet. 

I am at the Law School in Barcelona due to 

graduate next year. Whether we tweaked our fates or 

these were always our destinies we shall never know.

Collection 

FROM 

East and 

ELSEWHERE 

A collection of poetry by Ashley 

Pearson, featuring ‘‘Wet Market’’, 

‘‘Across the Globe’’, and ‘‘Whore’s 

Daughter’’. 

By ASHLEY PEARSON

F R O M 

E A S T 

A N D 

E L S E 

Collection 

Across the 

Globe 

From Two Neighbors by Philip Metres 

By ASHLEY PEARSON 

W H E R E 

THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD 

LIES IN THE DIVERSITY OF 

ITS PEOPLE. 

Unknown 

In Monmouth, clouds 

hangover blocking 

the blinding sun. 

It’s an abnormally 

warm spring and the 

humidity is thick in the air alongside 

clouds of pollen. I parked across the 

street from my old elementary school 

as children played on shiny, neon 

playground equipment and rolled 

around in the dewy grass. I introduced 

myself to an Americorps ambassador. 

The middle-aged woman mumbled an 

ope as she squeezed by me to enter a 

tiny conference room. Despite living 

in a tiny town, I had never met the 

woman. “Big place, isn’t it?” She said, 

winking in my direction. I laughed as 

she shut the door behind us. 

*cool in Korean 

**You’re pretty in Korean 

Down a busy street in some 

Jeollabuk-Do province, it’s happy 

hour. The wind picks up patron’s 

conversations and moves them down 

a block. Through a haze of smoke, 

a thirty something year old woman 

works the bar. The American air force 

men are slumped over on bar stools or 

leaning against cracked vinyl booths. 

The woman sees the younger girls 

enticed by the men and she shakes 

her head. “멋진*.” one of the bar girls 

whispers as she grabs another bottle 

of soju. One of the men clumsily says 

“당신은 예쁘다**” in vein of a failed 

variety show host. But, of course, the 

young girl blushes. They always do. 

P 

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POETRY 

T 

he American men call them bar girls, special entertainers, hostesses, 

comfort women, businesswomen. 

Nineteen, twenty-year-old girls serve drinks at sleazy Seoul bars a few miles from 

American military bases. Their tiny hips swivel to the beat of some 

throaty ballad. Sweaty Army men watch through thick cigarette smoke and a veil of 

drunkenness. Their eyes, glassy, stare down the tight white t-shirts 

of the “special entertainers” moonlighting as Americanized whores. 

Just like the movies, 

one girl in the break room rubs her swollen belly in front of a cracked mirror. 

She tugs at the hem of her tiny white tee to try to cover her underbelly. 

The doctor told her she’s five months along and having a girl with no last name. 

Her parents were childless for the longest time. 

Here she was pregnant at nineteen --- 

nothing but an ungrateful wrench and a cut branch from the family tree. 

WHORE’S DAUGHTER 

By ASHLEY PEARSON 

A white orchid blooms outside. 

Her mother and father prayed to God every night, and she did too, within the walls of her cramped apartment above 

the noisy nightlife; 

She begged for forgiveness from her mother, father, and unborn daughter. 

To be blessed with an heir is to be able to provide 300 bags of rice 

and sacrifice your eyesight to the outside world. 

If a family cannot conceive a son, an obedient and filial daughter is the next best bet. 

A daughter who will sacrifice her livelihood for her father’s happiness and marry a nice business man. A daughter who 

will listen to her homesick mother and dwell around the river. A daughter who will be reborn as a white lotus flower 

and not a 

filthy soul. 

P 

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POETRY 

POETRY 

Somewhere in Central America, 

from a distance, a scrawny boy 

gapes at a local woman’s breasts. He tugs 

at his mother’s sleeve and exclaims, in a low drawl, 

“Look at those honeydews!” His mother shushes him and her face 

turns as red as the Trinidian flag. She clutches a wooden cross in her right hand 

like she is warning off the devil and 

the two disappear into another aisle of the busy wet market. 

It’s tourist season. You can tell by the sweaty American fathers in lounge shirts 

waving down cabs on every corner. The drivers crack their knuckles and chain smoke 

out an open window while children clamber in the backseats of their cars. They 

press their button noses against the windows like dogs and 

stare at the local children selling flowers on the streets. 

Everyone loves rosas on a sunny day. 

Once, you read an article about how people like to draw 

the exotic people and exotic places. The author claimed that everyone loved having 

their portrait drawn in a stranger’s leather bound sketchbook. 

You suppose that it is a nicer way to say 

“Look at those honeydews!” 

Never go on a vacation without a pen 

and sketchbook. 

You can pay everyone later. 

You’re sure Picasso paid his dues in the same way. 

The food stands fry fish like well oiled machines. 

Triglia and salmon stare up at 

everybody with dead eyes and glistening scales as they 

chug down the conveyor belt line: 

Seeing everything and 

saying nothing at all. 

WET 

MARKET 

WET MARKET | ASHLEY PEARSON 

T’S SUMMER AND THE 

SWEDISH FISH HAVE 

LEARNED TO SAY NO 

By ZOE FRIEDLAND 

to the bait. walking my hands west 

down the wooden dock burned feet east down 

the throughway sidewalk. head rolling down the train 

tracks in time to my steps. were we all of us put 

on this earth 

just to sweat? 

there is a question of death. melting 

on my tongue on my tongue on my tongue 

the sun 

is still in the womb. 

there is a certain word for bite. 

geese droppings on my scalp heart 

spleen liver kidney and what’s left 

of me now 

the plastic teeth flying off the stage 

are closer than they appear. 

will you wash off a sticky god 

or keep your tongue 

in your mouth? 

I sing for worms in the gut of the moon. the sun is 

oozing. my toes have all popped off their knuckles 

rolling loose down the street from a spilled sac 

like hard candies. tiny spiders 

scattering out of the nest. the concrete curbs 

into childhood. 

standing 

in a flat grove: pink tree, green dog. 

it is possible to calculate the probability of 

encountering the misshapen face of God. I 

read this once. 

the bus is here. I buy cream now by the pint 

and countless are the many-legged 

lies I’ve flushed down the toilet. 

P 

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the chalk, like all chalk, is water-soluble. I am no longer engaged in seeking out a 

dialogue. 

P 

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49 


POETRY 

POETRY 

AMERICANS ARE DIRTY HIPSTERS | 

CHINONYE ALILONU 

D 

ust caked feet slid into worn sandals 

Midnight skin sizzling under half of a 

yellow sun 

Cassava piled high upon Aunty’s head 

Buckets dragged miles to the nearest river 

Huts line the dirt roads of Uzoagba 

The metal roofs doing their best 

To keep the malaria ridden mosquitoes away. 

A simple visit to Grandma’s oil mill 

Mango trees adorning the compound 

Is all it takes 

To belong in this home away from “home” 

Uncle says Americans are dirty hipsters 

The English are the ones who have class 

Yet he hasn’t set his eyes upon either country. 

Maybe he sings British praises 

Because they are held responsible 

For making Nigeria who she is today. 

americans are 

dirty hipsters 


P 

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Home is elastic 

memory 

embodying the 

mental snapshots 

our conscience materializes 

in those in-between moments, 

like flickers of sunrise 

pouring through indentations 

within the leaves’ whispers 

that mirror neighborhood gatherings 

under the trees’ shadows 

or scattered laughter surrounding 

the tranquil bonfire providing 

warmth 

to reminiscence alongside college 

friends. 

I embrace the comforting familiarity 

embedded in those stretches of 

space, 

like when our lips collided under the 

wooden canopy of the gazebo as 

the patter of the rain surrounded us 

in its own teardrop melody 

like 

when 

when our lips collided under the 

wooden canopy of the gazebo as 

the patter of the rain surrounded us 

in its own teardrop melody 

or even the rhythmic echoes of 

your velvet heartbeat when 

I laid my head on your chest while 

the pink skies covered us 

under their watchful gaze. 

A coworker once described 

home as the taste of roasted chicken 

P 

doused in melting A gravy, 

G 

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51 

a reminder of his local town 

and raucous meals with siblings 

A coworker once described 

home as the taste of roasted 

chicken 

doused in melting gravy, 

a reminder of his local town 

and raucous meals with siblings 

as the sun disappeared beyond 

the glowing diner windows 

framed by neon lights. 

What I learned from the 

twenty years I have lived so far is that 

the elasticity within our memory 

encourages us to bring home 

into coming expeditions and experiences 

adorning the unknown. 

twenty years I have lived so far is that 

the elasticity within our memory 

encourages us to bring home 


into coming expeditions and experiences

POETRY 

POETRY 

WHERE 

BODY 

‘‘Until the tide 

scores the soft fabric with boils, scabs, and 

distension anew / perfectly ruptured for me 

to scar my own ridgeline on. / Spine to spine, 

we meet. The earth and myself.’’ 

T H E 

ENDS 

human from beast? I imagine I’m her most days. I’ll pinch 

the ends of time together and lay my spotted towel aside hers, 

fall asleep in her skin. I dream of what my hands will look 

wrinkled and weak with age. If I drift far enough, I recall 

unbidden memories of my father and I in the kitchen, 

a morning before I learned that time doesn’t pick favorites. 

I wonder if she flinches at the breeze or sighs with pleasure because, 

in the union of sun and ocean, she finds earthly catharsis. 

Today, I know myself on a shoreline without name or marker 

on the folding map. I forget my name. I lose sight of my breath. 

Without sand to inscribe the details in, what hope 

is there of remembering? My bedroom suddenly feels too hot, 

One Hundred Miles Inland. My fan broke weeks ago. 

The heat settles on my skin with emphasis. It grasps at my belt, 

begging me to relinquish decency in exchange for one wish. 

Seems like a bum deal, so I do it anyway. To know the ocean here 

T 

By MAKENNA DYKSTRA 

here’s a photograph that I carry in the pocket of my soul. 

In it, a woman rests on the coast atop a striped towel –– 

orange 

demands imagination. I do the only thing I can think of 

and lay down on the blue carpet. My every inhale is an elegy 

written in her neglected name. I become her. The fabric 

of the world beneath me bubbles with heat until my consciousness 

and blue –– with one leg bent at the knee. A stray arm covers her 

eyes from the sun. The ocean rages a meter from where she lies 

atop roiling obsidian. The earth is angry beneath her, 

vengeful but forgiving. I can’t imagine she’s comfortable. 

She sleeps anyway, alone on the edge of perception 

but for a photographer and a stray towel left as tithe 

to the sea for sins forgotten in the morning. Clad only 

in bathing bottoms, a blue slip of fabric curls into her hips. 

I found the 5x7 scrap in a shoe box from my father’s college years. 

One of life’s flickering stills fragmented in Kodachrome ink 

– red, yellow, and blue amalgamated with a calculating hand 

to tattoo the ephemeral in the flesh of time immemorial. 

She lay hidden under an image of a juvenile elephant with a 

comically long erection. Something about the juxtaposition 

A N D 

submits to the ineffable ease of the soil. Until the tide 

scores the soft fabric with boils, scabs, and distension anew, 

perfectly ruptured for me to scar my own ridgeline on. 

Spine to spine, we meet. The earth and myself. 

THE EARTH 

BEGINS SMELLS LIKE SALT 

of brutish carnality alongside euphoric serenity led me to pocket 

them both. What chance possession of towel separates 


P 

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P 

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POETRY 

A PORTRAIT OF TWO HOMES IN ONE | AKINRINADE FUNMINIYI ISAAC 

My home is an iconic (re)presentation of war(riors), 

It shares boundaries with the ancient city of Ile-Ife; 

A land that houses 401 deities. 

My home is a land of vibrant people 

Who fought their way to remain relevant. 

In this poem, you won’t find the aftermath of the war; 

For today isn’t the time to tell the terrific tales 

Of how the war put bullet holes in many, 

Of how it rendered many homeless. 

To visit my home is to be welcomed 

By straight & serpentine routes, 

To bear the jagajìgì of the rickety bus, 

To feed your eyes with the commercial crux 

Of my home — filling stations and slaughterhouses. 

In my home, there is another home; 

Where I flip through father’s late monochromes, 

Where I’m kept awake by the cacophony of termites. 

A home where mama’s warm embrace engulfs me, 

Where she says her prayers by kneeling 

& rolling on the floor upon her son’s arrival. 

P 

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CHAPTER 

stories 

STORIES 

‘‘A people without the knowledge of their 

past history, origin, and culture is like a 

tree without roots.’’ 

Marcus Garvey 


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56

allen angel 

FALLEN ANGEL | MATT HSU 

his wings were clipped on a tuesday, 

a belated christmas gift. there was gold 

on his hips and bamboo strapped to his back. 

he could draw picasso with no hands 

and best anyone at basketball. mom 

carried him home on a throne of jade and cobwebs. 

buffed with seaweed; he planted a flag 

at the top of the slide. middle fingers up and reigning 

with a double-barrelled gun. he knew how many seconds 

were in three hours (more than ten thousand), 

and he sprinted faster than all the girls, even 

when wearing khakis. just like harry potter, he 

had black hair and round glasses, 

so of course, he was the chosen one. 

with sharpie, he spelled it out 

he would dominate in seven different 

languages, including chinese and russian, 

and release honeybees into the skies. 

it was prophesied because it was written on creamcolored 

paper, he told himself, 

rubbing the asphalt off his elbows. 

after eleven years, the sun stopped 

shining on his shoulders. it was strange and certainly 

quite uncomfortable—the rice cakes he sold 

in his backyard went stale, and the stuffed manatees 

began jumping from his bed, and for the first time, 

his knees hurt from the tumble to earth. 

his billboards were ripped down by seagulls— 

from the wire frames spilled blood, deemed 

tasty by the gulls. they painted over his rainbow 

with black tar, sewed his teeth together with golden 

spool, smothered him with perfume and paychecks, 

and fastened a wristwatch around his neck. 

he walks with two feet, now 

burning tteok and scallions in the pan and 

eating them with a soup spoon. at midnight, 

his coven is lined with pearls and broken 

pencils. he sings hymns and takes off his shirt 

spreading citrus over the scars of 

God’s fallen angel. 


P 

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Prose 

A depiction of a world that seems 

so different than our own on the 

surface but has striking similarities 

underneath. 

By TRISHA REDDY 

YORUBA CULTURAL HERITAGE | 

BUKUNMI OYEWOLE 

he stars shone 

Tbrightly 

above 

the battlefield. 

Tomorrow, the 

sound of screams 

would ring in the air, but for tonight, 

it was silent except for the rustling of 

the wind. 

Not far from the field, a 

camp of warriors rested for the 

night. 

They sat around bonfires, 

laughing and reminiscing. A small 

group of women, dressed in full 

armor, kept away from the festivities 

of the men around them. 

“How can they be so 

carefree?” the raven-haired girl 

said with disdain. She had her arm 

wrapped around the youngest girl, 

who was shaking in terror. 

“A lifetime of victories 

has made them cocky,” the older 

woman scoffed. She tied back her 

grey-streaked hair as she eyed the 

men around her with scorn. They 

too viewed her with suspicion and 

distrust. 

These were the first women 

in the Seafrontan army. Oblivious to 

the thrill of wartime triumph, they 

weren’t drunk on victory like the 

P 

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61 

men around them. 

The older woman knew that 

her role was crucial. She had fought 

tooth and nail to bring herself here, 

and she refused to die. The two 

women around her were randomly 

selected from women of fighting age 

and given the same training as the 

men. 

“I’m scared,” the littlest 

whispered. 

The raven-haired girl 

hugged her closer and the older 

woman started to sing a soft lullaby. 

She sang a long lost song of 

love and war. She sang of family and 

a home, and the journeys that take 

you far away. She sang of hope and 

victory. 

Her mother used to sing 

this song. That was so long ago, when 

the older woman was still a little girl, 

scared of the monster under her bed. 

Now here she was, determined to 


PROSE 

PROSE 

fight for her cause. 

When she finished, the 

littlest girl had her eyes closed. 

The older woman couldn’t help but 

smile ever so slightly. She pitied 

this girl, who was ripped from her 

home. Unlike the men around her 

that shared her age, she was never 

taught to fight. She was never 

taught to laugh at the shedding of 

blood. 

It was the older woman’s 

fault, that much she knew. But it 

was all for a noble cause. If she 

could prove that women were as 

effective on the battlefield as the 

men, it could be the tipping point 

for equality between them. 

If she must throw herself 

on the front lines for her cause, so 

be it. 

Tomorrow, blood would 

stain her spear and dry on her 

hands, as fire rained from above. 

But for tonight, the stars shone 

brightly above the battlefield. 

In the center of camp, 

far from the lullaby, an emperor 

watched his soldiers from his tent. 

He saw their revelry, he saw their 

cheer, and the sinking pit in his 

‘‘If she must throw herself 

on the front lines for her 

cause, so be it.’’ 

stomach grew. 

“I’m leading them to 

their deaths,” he whispered, tears 

forming in his eyes. “How could I 

be so cruel?” 

“You mustn’t get so 

emotional before battle, dear 

brother,” the princess said with 

a little laugh. “You’ve never lost 

before.” 

The emperor clenched his 

fists. He knew the resentment that 

had been simmering in his sister 

for the last few months. She was 

the mastermind behind his military 

genius, but it was he who got the 

credit. For she was a woman and no 

one would trust her. 

Would she betray him? 

Their enemy had no such qualms 

about women. A woman was their 

monarch, and she was as feared 

and loved as any the emperor had 

ever known. 

He relaxed his hand. He 

must trust his sister, even if it was 

temporary. He knew that she at 

least had some pride in her nation. 

And change would arrive 

soon. Somewhere in the camp, 

three women were awaiting the 

battle. The emperor knew they were 

a sign of the growing movement 

within his people, and he was more 

than happy to oblige them. 

‘‘You’re right,” he said, 

trying to level his voice. The tears 

were gone now. “It shouldn’t be long 

now before the war is won and the 

Golden Gates will be ours.” 

He didn’t like the smile 

he saw on her face, but he brushed 

it aside. Now was not the time for 

anxieties. He must trust her, for 

without his sister, he and his armies 

would be doomed. 

She glanced out of the 

tent for a brief second. Then, after 

an uncharacteristic moment of 

hesitation, she said, “I know what 

you think of me. You believe me a 

fool enough to betray my nation, 

don’t you?” 

He stood frozen for several 

moments, as she stared at him with a 

scowl. 

“So I was right. Know one 

thing. My hatred for you is 

overshadowed by my love for this 

nation. I would never, ever think 

of betraying it.” 

With those as her last 

words, she stormed out of the 

command tent, leaving the 

emperor alone with his guilt and 

worries. 

Tomorrow, his soldiers 

would burn in front of him and he, 

too, would fall to the flames. But 

for tonight, the stars shone brightly 

above the battlefield. 

Not too far away, another 

camp awaited the morning. But the 

atmosphere was far different. It was 

somber and grim. A group of siblings 

huddled in their tent, pretending to 

ignore the harsh winds outside. 

“Why don’t you sleep?” the 

eldest sister said, her voice tense. 

“I’ll take the first watch.” 

“I’m not buying that again,” 

the elder brother responded, his 

voice much kinder. He was only a 

year younger than his sister, but she 

had never let him share any of her 

burdens. “You said the same thing 

last night and you never woke any of 

us up.” 

“I’m the eldest.” She had 

gotten used to keeping her voice 

calm, even when she wanted nothing 

more than to cry. She glanced at 

their three other siblings. They were 

curled up together underneath the 

shared blanket. She was their mother 

now and a mother was supposed 

to protect her young. “You and the 

others need to be well-rested for 

tomorrow’s battle.” 

“So do you,” he said in a 

whisper, grabbing her hand. She 

pulled away, feeling the tears in her 

eyes threaten to spill over. Her fears 

mixed with her exhaustion. 

“I’ll be fine.” 

That’s when the tears 

spilled over. 

Her brother held her close as they 

raced down her dark face. It was only 

‘‘Tomorrow, she would cradle 

their corpses, the hope in 

those eyes long gone.’’ 

when they stopped that she dared 

form a sentence. 

“I’m so scared,” she 

whispered. “What if something 

happens to us? Who will take care of 

the little ones? And what if something 

happens to them?” 

She felt arms wrap around 

her waist. Her youngest sister stared 

back up at her with hopeful blue 

eyes. 

“Nothing will happen with 

you there,” she exclaimed. The eldest 

smiled. 

“I know, my little lovely,” the 

eldest said, stroking the youngest’s 

hair, pushing away her fears. The 

little ones needed to see her courage, 

not her tears. 

The other two were wide 

awake. The boys were twins, and they 

stared at the eldest with the same 

blue, hopeful eyes as the youngest. 

“If we stick together, no one 

can hurt us.” 

They curled up together 

that night, keeping each other warm. 

The eldest pushed down her worries. 

They had fought plenty of battles, 

right? And they had always survived 

together. Besides, only she and the 

second oldest would be fighting. The 

little ones would be helping in the 

medic tent. 

She let herself enjoy this 

moment of peace among her siblings. 

Tomorrow, she would cradle their 

corpses, the hope in those eyes long 

gone. But for tonight, the stars shone 

brightly above the battlefield. 

Further away from the 

camp, a queen visited her dragon. 

It was a gorgeous beast, with its 

brilliant orange scales, but a 

deadly one nonetheless. 

She had hoped to avoid this 

at all costs. She wanted to play the 

emperor’s game. She had done 

her best to keep her people safe 

without this option. She stayed 

calm, kept her head up, and hid 

her true power. 

But if the Seafront wanted 

the beast, they would get the beast. 

Any enemy of her people 

must face her flames of wrath. She 

was the Phoenix’s daughter, the 

Ash Princess, and Queen of the 

Golden Gates. They were fools to 

underestimate her power. 

“Must you do this?” a 

somber voice asked. The queen 

turned around to face her father, the 

Phoenix. He was a god to her people, 

but to her, he was simply a man with 

a great deal of power. 

“I will do what I must.” 

She stroked the warm scales of her 

beast. He would be her weapon, her 

greatest equalizer. “The Seafront 

invaded first. I am simply protecting 

my people.” 

“How many innocent people 

will die?” 

“No one in war is innocent.” 


P 

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P 

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63 


PROSE 

“Perhaps. But what of your own troops? Will they not feel the wrath of your 

flames?” 

The queen hesitated for a moment. “Of course not. I will not be attacking 

them.” 

“Fire isn’t something you can control. It spreads and spreads until it has 

reduced the world to ashes.” The Phoenix’s eyes flickered. 

“I am the Queen of Flames. They will obey me,” she snapped. “I’d rather 

you didn’t question my decisions.” 

“Don’t let your ego cloud you from making the right decision.” 

She took a deep breath, letting the flames of anger billow inside her. “And 

what do you know of ruling? You have always lived in comfort and warmth up in 

your palace, unbothered by the death and destruction of your people. But that isn’t 

me. Battle after battle, I watched my subjects get slaughtered. No matter what I have 

done in the past, the Seafrontan army will always seek to destroy mine. What other 

choice do I have? I must ensure my people’s survival.” 

The Phoenix sighed. Before leaving, he said, “You’ve made your choice. 

Pray you don’t regret it.” 

The queen huddled closer to her beast, soaking in his radiated warmth. 

She watched her father disappear. She almost missed his company as the wind bit 

harshly at her skin. 

Tomorrow, fire would flood the ground, the smell of melting flesh in the 

air. But for tonight, the stars shone brightly above the battlefield. 

An immortal watched the chaos from above. Her heart broke to see the 

world in such shambles. 

War, war, war. Was that all humans were fit for? Reaping blood until there 

was none left? Was that their fate? 

From her perch in the sky, the immortal’s sharp ears could make out the eldest 

women’s lullaby. It was soothing. 

She could feel it all; the apprehension, unease, protectiveness, and 

desperation. 

Among them all, there was a burning passion, a deep love. 

Will the mortals ever learn? Time and time again, they waged their wars 

and fought their battles. They claimed victory despite allowing many of their own to 

be slaughtered. 

The immortal sighed as she waited out the night. Despite her frustration, 

she was curious as to how the battle would play out. 

Tomorrow, the land would be drenched in blood. But for tonight, the stars 

shone brightly above the battlefield. 

HOME COMMUNITY 

| GLORIOUS KATE 

AKPEGAH 

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NONFICTION 

NONFICTION 

BROKEN 

SIDEWALKS 

A Vignette Memoir 

By KAYA DIERKS 

My Neighborhood 

I live on a street cleaved in two. Lake Street, a skinny 

stretch of narrow pastel houses wrapped around the edge of 

Presidio National Park, is technically two neighborhoods. The North side, 

the side where I live, is a proud member of District 2, which encompasses 

five of the richest communities in San Francisco – Marina, Cow Hollow, 

Sea Cliff, Pacific Heights, and Presidio Heights; places with the kind of 

white people who give out full size Hershey’s bars on Halloween. And the 

South side is part of the Richmond district — where old Chinese ladies 

swathed in puffy, cheap down-jackets totter along, dragging their rusted 

grocery carts across the cracks in the ancient sidewalks. 

At one point, the politically connected homeowners on the 

North Side of Lake convinced the supervisorial board that they belonged 

more with the manicured lawns of District 2 then with the Richmond’s 

fractured concrete – so the city snipped Lake in two. And I guess it just 

stuck. I guess people looked up at the North side — saw its shiny new 

sidewalks, crisp and clean as squares of white icing; its smooth wide 

face, tilted towards the cold yellow sun; its neat, clean staircases, steps 

stacked like rows of straight teeth — and then looked at the Richmond. 

The Richmond, where I once saw a drug bust across the street 

from the Walgreens I buy shampoo from, the Walgreens with the homeless 

guy who sits out at the front fiddling with the blunt end of a crumpled 

wax coffee cup. The Richmond, a residential district like a graying old 

man, with its crumpled houses, crumpled corners: This neighborhood 

is my city’s best-kept secret, this tiny, hushed place, tucked away at 

the fraying edges of a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco. There’s a store 

where you can buy bags of dusty Soviet candies and faded Russian 

paperbacks for two dollars each; there’s about ten thousand cheap dimsum 

restaurants; there’s a boba place and an old-fashioned ice cream 

shop and a big, gaping husk of a building that used to be a movie theater 

and hasn’t been turned into anything 

new, not yet. It still has its old sign: 

Alexandria, in blocky white print, the 

letters suspended twenty feet into the 

sky. 

But I live in District 2. Thirteen 

blocks from my house is Presidio 

Terrace, one of the most prestigious 

areas in Presidio Heights – a gated 

community with green groomed lawns. 

I’ve never been inside, and I can’t see 

over its walls, but I can sometimes see 

the tips of houses — their sprawling, 

stately brown roofs. I stare at them and 

I wonder how I am a part of a world that 

I can’t even fathom. And then I look back 

to Lake Street: my neighborhood, broken 

down a sidewalk. 

I wonder if I can cut myself 

in half, too. I’m half Korean and half 

European: this complicated mess of race 

that translates to Chinese when I’m in 

Marin and white when I’m in Korea and 

Hapa — mixed, like heaping scoops of 

my mom’s white-brown rice — when 

I’m visiting my Korean Grandma Soo. 

Something that becomes absolutely, 

strictly taboo when I’m with my 

conservative, Republican grandparents 

in Texas: Like if Grandma Marie 

squeezes her eyes shut for long enough, 

I’ll somehow just fade into a white 

granddaughter — pale blonde eyebrows, 

fat blue eyes, pink cheeks. 

And sometimes, when I look 

in the mirror, I can’t even pick myself 

apart. My Grandma Soo says that there’s 

not a single Korean person on Earth 

who looks like me, but sometimes I 

can’t even see a single trace of European 

anywhere: not in my small nose or 

my straight eyelashes or my fat moon 

cheeks. I lay everything out onto my 

palms: Richmond and Presidio Heights; 

Korean and European; Asian and white; 

maternal and paternal; smooth concrete 

and the Alexandria. Everything inside 

me, around me: Always divided. 


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NONFICTION 

NONFICTION 

Snakes in the Ceiling 

When my maternal 

grandmother YangSoo Hwang was 

five, so small that her body was still 

‘‘I wonder if I can cut myself 

in half, too. I’m half Korean 

and half European: this 

complicated mess of race that 

translates to Chinese when 

I’m in Marin...’’ 

all limbs and eyes, she lived in a large, 

Japanese-built house in Seoul — a 

big, stately home; a forgotten relic 

of Japanese imperialism. Her father 

was a cabinet member under the first 

South Korean president, Syngman 

Rhee, and she was accustomed to a 

life of relative luxury. How luxurious, 

I’ll never know: Her memories are just 

sea-glass — smooth, round shards, 

sanded down by time. 

Once the Korean War began, 

my great-grandmother bundled up 

my grandmother and her siblings 

and they traveled by ship to Namhae, 

a tiny island on the southern coast of 

Korea. Their house in Namhae didn’t 

have plumbing or electricity, but my 

grandmother wasn’t afraid. She made 

tiny lights out of fireflies: She’d catch 

them on hot summer nights 

and then trap them in sheets 

of paper so thin that she could 

see the bugs blinking quietly 

under the thick blanket of 

night. 

Then, when she was six, her 

mother and her older brother 

and sister got on a ship to 

travel back to mainland Korea, 

and they never came back. The 

way my grandma tells it, it’s 

like they were consumed by 

the sea: like a big wave curled 

over them and their ship just 

surrendered, sinking into its cold 

embrace. Somewhere 

at the bottom of the 

ocean, my greatgrandmother 

and 

her two children still 

lie silent, tangled 

together, eyes closed, 

resting, waiting, as 

time quietly sweeps 

over them. 

My grandma 

didn’t cry at their 

funeral. She says it’s 

because she was that 

young, but I think it’s because she 

was that brave. She played with the 

boys and refused to study her books 

and yelled when her brother said she 

was ugly. And when the adults told 

her that there were snakes hiding 

in the thatched roofs of the cottages 

they called homes, my grandmother 

would stay awake at night, staring at 

the ceiling. She’d blink into the black 

vacuum of the dark, wondering if 

a snake would drop down onto her 

face and curl against her neck. And 

she was afraid, but she still refused 

to move. She was the kind of girl who 

dug into her own turf. The kind of girl 

who confronted the night, who saw 

snakes shifting in the dark and set her 

jaw. 

She immigrated to the United 

States from Korea when she was 

twenty-two, in a Pan-Am flight that 

traced across the wrinkled winding 

fabric of the Pacific Ocean. Before she 

arrived on American soil, she dreamed 

of New England: a rustic, suburban 

America tinted golden by a Hollywood 

amber. She dreamed of autumn leaves 

turning crisp and red, of rain hushing 

over sidewalks, of branches shivering 

in the breeze. She dreamed of a squat, 

stately home with a creaky stair and 

a straight white fence and walls that 

exhaled and groaned when it stormed 

in the winter. She dreamed so hard 

for so long that when she arrived 

in Hawaii — a hot new world that 

had burst forth from its gritty sugar 

plantation industry — she squinted at 

the red earth that spread out beneath 

her feet, and she felt her heart fall into 

her legs. 

And then she blinked. 

Sixteen years earlier she had lost her 

mother and siblings to the ocean’s 

greedy stomach, and yet she had just 

traveled halfway across the globe. She 

stared at this foreign landscape, and 

decided that she wasn’t afraid. 

Tired, homesick, fearless; my 

grandmother fumbled through the 

next decade of her life. She worked 

as a receptionist at a hotel in Waikiki 

Beach, and then as a bilingual 

teacher for 40 students at Roosevelt 

High School in Honolulu. She met 

my grandfather, another Korean 

immigrant who worked at the local 

college, and they married each other 

in Hawaii, this place they both now 

called home. Two black-haired, 

round-faced Americans, standing 

together at the front of a church. And 

when my grandma didn’t understand 

Western wedding customs — when 

she turned her head away and said 

no when the minister said you may 

kiss the bride, and when she asked her 

friends to join her and grandpa on 

their honeymoon — my grandfather 

just pulled her closer against him, and 

they laughed. They settled together 

in a humble home; a little house once 

built for the family of a sugar cane 

plantation worker. 

Soon my mom came about, 

first as an idea and then as a small 

person, little legs and arms and 

a smooth round scalp. My mom 

was like me: a December baby that 

screamed her way into the world as 

a storm reared its ugly head outside, 

sharp winds shrieking and hissing as 

the heavens cracked open and rain 

tumbled out of grey angry clouds. My 

mom and I were both stormy women 

born on stormy nights, kicking to 

life as the God pounded down on the 

earth. 

But when my mom was born 

on midnight in Hilo Hospital in Hawaii, 

my Grandma Soo sat in her hospital 

bed, silent. She was cold and it was 

raining, and the window was open — 

someone had forgotten to close it. My 

grandma’s shoulder ached terribly, a 

cold throbbing pain. A shoulder ache 

in the hospital and a baby pulsing in 

her stomach, and yet she couldn’t 

bring herself to ring her buzzer and 

summon her nurse — a smiling white 

woman who spoke perfect English. My 

grandmother was so polite, so afraid 

to bother this American nurse, that 

she just pressed her lips together as 

her body roared alongside the storm. 

My grandmother. She wasn’t 

ever polite before. My grandmother 

who stared at snakes in the dark, my 

grandmother who leapt into a new 

life, my grandmother who refused 

to sink into a dark choppy sea. My 

grandmother, the wild woman, the 

woman like a storm, the woman who 

caught fireflies in her palms. Afraid to 

open her mouth. 


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Babies Behind Glass 

My Grandma Marie is from Texas, 

not Hawaii, and her family has been in 

America so long that they’ve forgotten 

where they even came from to begin 

with. She’s strong in a different way 

than my Grandma Soo. Grandma 

Marie’s wiry, bony skeleton is filled 

with a brittle sort of fortitude, the kind 

of strength that sneaks up on you. 

The one and only thing I’m 

sure about Grandma Marie is that I 

love her and that she absolutely loves 

me. She keeps a picture of me by her 

bedside table: I’m two years old and 

I’m wearing a blue cardigan and little 

purple corduroys and my hair is in 

two thumb-size ponytails. Grandma 

Marie says that I always slept with one 

eye open and one eye closed 

when I was an infant because 

I didn’t want to miss anything. 

But you never do miss anything, 

anyway, she says, and laughs. 

And then she smiles at me, 

fragile and small and strong. 

My Grandma believes 

in a God that she calls My God 

because He is her God — her 

God that helped her get good 

scores in high school; her God 

that made her the best midsize 

real estate agent that Spring, 

Texas had ever seen; her God that 

gave her the strength to overcome 

two bouts of cancer and a mild 

stroke; her God that helped Duke win 

their basketball game. And in church, 

when she looks up at her blue-eyed, 

blond-haired, white-faced Jesus, she 

sees herself — her own hair and eyes 

and skin. My grandma believes in her 

God and her priest and her favorite 

Coach Krzyzewski and her President 

Donald Trump, and she speaks about 

current events with a lighthearted 

indifference that borders on offensive. 

And she might be racist, because that 

one time my grandfather Bob said 

the n-word when we were getting gas 

at the Shell in Texas, she didn’t say 

anything — just sat in the car with 

her hands in her lap, her mouth tight. 

Her first son Stephen — my dad’s 

older scary brother — was born as an 

innocent little infant on June 3, 1963. 

Before giving birth, my grandmother 

sat in her car in the hospital parking 

lot for hours because she didn’t have 

the money to pay the extra bed fees. 

Right after midnight she hustled in 

the hospital — dragging her swollen 

belly with her like a watermelon — 

and Steve was born by one o’clock 

in the morning, his tiny screams 

erupting into a pitch-black sky. 

After he was born, my 

grandma’s priest, Father Flanagan, 

came to visit her and little Steve. They 

walked down the hospital corridors 

until they found the viewing-glass: 

babies on one side, bundled in cotton 

‘‘ One of the greatest 

challenges is being yourslef 

in a world that’s trying to 

make like everyone else.’’ 

blankets and placed in lined plastic 

beds, and parents on the other. 

Grandma Marie looked down the line 

of perfect pink babies and then she 

saw one who didn’t quite fit. The baby 

didn’t have hands, just smooth fleshy 

stubs. Its mother had taken this drug 

called thalidomide, which leads to 

genetic mutations — or deformations, 

as my grandma calls them. The 

parents didn’t want to own their 

child anymore. Not this stubby little 

wreck of a baby. And my grandma 

thought about her own son Stephen, 

her little doll of an infant boy, all soft 

skin and baby smell. And she and 

Father Flanagan both felt like crying. 

My Grandma Soo always tells 

me too much of everything – she can 

talk for hours about herself as long 

as I just sit and nod and smile – but 

my Grandma Marie never tells me 

enough of anything. I’m always left 

to wonder, left to color in the hollow 

gaps in the frail spiderwebbing of 

everything I know about her. She 

hands me fragments of stories like 

shards – tiny little slips – and I’m stuck 

trying to piece them together until my 

fingertips weep small bloody tears. 

Grandma Marie, if that had been 

your baby, would you have cried? And 

what did you think when you saw 

me across the hospital glass? Stubby 

little baby fingers and tight almond 

eyes? Your Asian granddaughter. 

My parents told me that you 

wanted to name me Kimberly. But 

I’m not Kimberly, Grandma, I’m Kaya 

— Kaya like Gaya, like 가야, 

like the name my immigrant 

grandparents chose for me 

because that’s tradition, 

Kaya like an ancient South 

Korean kingdom that’s 

crumbled into more myth 

than history. I know I’m not 

what you expected. I know 

that when you prayed to your 

God for a granddaughter, 

she didn’t look like me. 

And I didn’t expect a 

grandmother like you. 

Grandma Marie, what did 

you think when my dad married my 

mom, this five-foot-two tidal wave 

of a Korean-American woman? Their 

wedding in Hawaii, when Mom wore a 

hanbok and Dad grinned at her goofily, 

all teeth? Mom’s parents who still 

speak with an accent, words dancing 

awkwardly across their Korean 

tongues? You, sitting there, with your 

Fox News and quiet indifference. 

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NONFICTION 

Grandma, I want to love you. Please, 

let me love you. Don’t make it so hard. 

I’ve watched you fumble through 

three illnesses that should have taken 

you down and somehow you can still 

infuriate me even though you can’t 

walk anymore. Your legs, then your 

speech — now even that’s slurring 

away. How much more can your husk 

of a body even take, Grandma? I want 

to forgive you but sometimes it feels 

like I can’t. I want to but I just can’t. 

Please, please, I want to forgive you 

before you die, before I have to see you 

die, before you’re just a wrinkled shell 

in a coffin that reeks of everything 

I’ve left unsaid. It’s like a fifth limb, 

‘‘My future is 

a waterlogged 

butterfly. I cradle 

it in my hands 

and watch it take 

shape...’’ 

everything unspoken between us, 

everything we tuck inside ourselves. 

And I want to believe you, Grandma. 

More than anything else I want to 

believe you love me too. 

I want everything for you, 

Grandma Marie, for you, you soft 

strong woman, my grandmother. I 

pray to a God that is not my own to 

give me the courage. 

different. They are both strong 

American woman who watch and 

listen and wait. They aren’t afraid of 

anything, not men or ships or cancer. 

And when my grandmothers fall 

asleep, they both dream the same 

dreams for me. They map my life 

across their palms: A future that starts 

at a prestigious college and ends with 

money, and a family, and a home, and 

most of all, happiness — at the end of 

the day, all they really want is for me 

to be happy. 

My future is a waterlogged 

butterfly. I cradle it in my hands and 

watch it take shape: one wing fluttering 

to life, and then another. Maybe I can’t 

feel my ancestors. Maybe I can’t speak 

Korean and maybe I don’t know where 

my father’s family comes from. But I 

can feel my grandmothers’ breath on 

my back. And when I stay still, I can 

almost hear their heartbeats in my 

chest, slow and small. 

I am their stormy 

granddaughter, and I will inherit their 

strength, but not their silence. I am 

Presidio Heights and the Richmond. 

I am all of my grandmothers’ stories. 

Chopsticks and forks, hanboks and 

jeans, Mom and Dad, Soo and Marie. 

And one day I might be a grandmother 

too, dreaming dreams for somebody 

else. But today I am just a girl, a girl 

who is two things, two neighborhoods. 

A girl who might forgive. A girl who 

sleeps with one eye open and isn’t 

afraid of snakes. 

My Grandmothers’ Hopes 

My two grandmothers, 

Grandma Soo from Hawaii and 

Grandma Marie from Texas, are 

sometimes more similar than 


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POETRY 

B O G 

By NINA SIKANDAR 

By CHINONYE ALILONU 

i 

gbo woman uprooted. igbo man disavowed. these are my parents. the first teachers of the house. 16&17. igbo 

woman and man made the choice to leave their village. to come to america. the land 

of promise. the land of dreams. the land where they would meet again and create a new life. 

similar to how God created the earth. 

on the first day, they met at a party. on the second day, they had their first date. the week passed, 

igbo woman and man slowly intertwined their lives together. on the seventh day, they were 

married. 

16&17. both ages have passed me by. in those days, igbo woman and man came to america. 

sometimes i wonder what my life would be. if igbo woman and man stayed in their soil. 

sometimes i wonder if i would’ve had the courage. to uproot myself. 

in another life. i am the igbo woman uprooted. the one whose life changed. 

not because of anybody else. but because of me. like a weed, i will pull myself from the comfortable. dark. soil 

and toss myself to the side. to gain a new life, i must cast away my old one. 

Ihave the predicament 

of palms down my trousers, my collar: 

the inexplicable urge to choke on air. 

there is something vile from knowing 

every corner of the surface 

and every square-inch 

I’d rather not reveal 

in its fullest. 

this mouth to drink from? 

this skin covered head to toe in moss, 

jacket caught, shoes slipping on wet rocks. 

bog body preserved by something that killed me 

red mangle clay mangled 

its arms twisted underneath a man-grove’s prop roots. 

in its wholeness I wanted to be digestible. 

chewed first to soft pliant parts 

dampened, pointy, deprived 

made of bones and water. 

in its wholeness I wanted to be digestible. 

chewed first to soft, pliant parts 

dampened, pointy, deprived 

made of bones and water. 

hand-crushed star anise, viviparous seeds 

mixed in bubbled, candied brackish 

a hardened pit with holes, on 

the inside of its throat. halkum. 

everything I touch turns green, 

that it only moulds to inherit your eyes 

when you nurture it. this bog body. 

find me in these waning peatlands 

find me where I kept it. 


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POETRY 

POETRY 

THE 

FRUIT 

OF 

YOUR 

LABOUR 

THE FRUIT OF YOUR 

LABOUR | ASSIA MESSAOUDI 

i 

haven’t had a fig 

since the last time i sat under 

my grandfather’s fig tree 

he plucked it from the stem 

and fed it to me 

while the hot 

algerian sun 

shone down on us 

someone once told me that 

figs are considered flowers 

but i cannot think of him 

without thinking of fruit 

embodiment of sweet nourishment 

the way he would walk down 

the marble steps of our family home 

holding onto a watermelon 

from the vendor on the side of the road 

just so we could have a chance to sit together 

and say nothing 

i sit in a different kind of silence 

now he is gone 

erased from our genealogy 

a severed branch 

of our family tree 

i haven’t been back in years 

since they cut down the fig tree 

home reminds me of a cemetery 

you can’t make wreaths out of figs 

they’re not known for lasting long 

so i scour every market 

to bring back that feeling 

but without him every fruit 

leaves a sour taste in my mouth 


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POETRY 

PROSE 

The beginning was muddy disarray, now a farm. 

The mud, covered with fallen mangoes; bruised and hanging from a broken branch. 

Amidst which I was born. 

The juice of the slice, 

The slice stabbed with a knife and raggedly cut 

Dripped past my lips, 

Choosing to settle in the haven of my collarbones, now covered with blobs of fat, 

And still, they managed to seep past my neckline, 

Down the slopes of my premature breasts, 

Until my mother ran towards me with smiling eyes. 

Shouldn’t she be disgusted? 

Those were the earlier days. 

When I was the mango juice forced out of the succulent mess 

And my home – its definition still inexplicable. 

Now I want to leap across, 

The leap is one of faith 

And go back when the mangoes were mangoes 

And not a reminder of something which I was unable to define, namely home. 

A home now no longer home, 

The reputation besmirched with my grandparent’s trip to heaven 

The essence of it evaporated with them. 

Maybe the concrete bricks slapped across with cement and forced to stick together were a 

domicile only to my skin-ular frame. 

Maybe I belong to the mud, 

To the beginning of it all. 

I desire to be covered in the pulpy filth 

And be drowned in the sludgy filth, 

None of it is filth. 

It is Home. 

MANGOES 

By AKSHITA KUMAR 

W 

hen the stench 

b e c a m e 

unbearable, she 

took the liberty to 

flip over to his end. 

A bigger, softer and better side. A side 

to breathe and think, for once. 

The stench seemed to pierce 

through her fabric. It had grown on 

her, and she with it. 

Her olfactory sense was no 

recent victim to an assault 

of this kind, and with 

every breath she took, 

she became dimly aware 

of her circumstances that 

were more or less beyond 

her control. 

The stench had 

been an inevitable part 

of her life - her Nani and 

Mamma’s bedrooms 

smelling worse in 

superlative degree. 

As she felt her 

body getting sucked into 

the bed with venomous 

intensity, she couldn’t help 

think of the only other 

space where her Mamma 

and Nani were confined to 

performing privately. 

‘We all boil at 

different temperatures,’ 

Mamma would tell her 

while preparing her 

father’s evening tea. She 

would watch the leaves 

infuse, trying to match it 

with the passion of her 

life trying to seep out. She 

could never tell if she was 

past her boiling point. 

All those long hours in 

the kitchen with Mamma and Nani, 

watching them obliterate all traces 

of their ambitions to feed the bigger 

aspirations of their better halves, the 

husbands had surely found the right 

palms to grease. 

Sugar. Spice. Woman. 5 letters. Delicious 

congruency. 

‘Remember to never forget – 

that cruelty and benevolence are but 

the shades of the same colour.’ She 

would down Nani’s advice along the 

turmeric milk; her Nani’s strategy 

to immunize her against domestic 

vexations. 

‘Remember to never forget.’ 

She never forgot – believing that her 

relationship would move past all 

the hiccups, priding that her hatred 

lasted no older than a heartbeat. But 

it was never easy- even if she were 

happy and sweetened his tea beyond 

measure, a pinch of salt was all that it 

took to restore lucidity. 

The kitchen became a relic of 

marital discord, her Mamma and Nani 

its monument of utmost patience and 

virtue. All those injured rose-tinted 

memories preserved by tides of honey 

A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | A DECAYING FEAST | 

and dashes of lemon haunted her. 

That nugget of wisdom, the 

morsels of logic that they had passed 

on to her as recipes -the key to a man’s 

heart, but with a hint of chequered 

history, look how they now melt her 

corrupt eyes. 

Unlike a carefree fish 

swimming unbeknownst in capricious 

waters, she now seemed to understand 

why her Mamma cried her eyes out 

while deveining the 

shrimps, why she 

couldn’t distinguish 

the blood red from 

the chilli red, why 

on certain occasions 

the curry tasted 

unusually spicy, and 

why, after a certain 

time, Nani’s eyes 

wouldn’t smart upon 

peeling onions, or 

shed a few tears upon 

receiving bruises 

from a knife. 

It was all coming 

back in ludicrous 

amounts, to undo the 

defence, to unstitch 

the wounds, to invoke 

the wrath – the smell 

of his favourite dish, 

roasted aspirations, 

the sweaty stews, the 

battered skeleton, 

the whipped heart, 

the sleazy salads, 

the blood, bones 

and butter. A 

protracted revenge 

of generations 

rendered right. 

The domestic goddess was 

certain of many a things -that the 

way to a man’s stomach is through his 

heart, and from the heart to the heart 

of the matter. 

However, what she still couldn’t 

decipher was the overpowering 

ingredient of that unbearable reek – 

the stench of the living dead, or of a 

staling violence. 


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Odyssey 

ISSUE II | 2020: THE ODYSSEY 

SUMMER 2021 EDITION 

The Global Youth Review 

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CONTRIBUTORS 

CONTRIBUTORS 

ISSUE THREE 

AKINRINADE FUNMINIYI ISAAC is a Nigerian realtor and writer with works appearing 

in Writers Space Africa Magazine, Stardust Haiku, Olney Magazine, Praxis Magazine, Word 

Rhymes and Rhythm (WRR) and elsewhere. His works revolve around silence, home, 

heritage, humans, among others. He’s an ardent lover of art and a promoter of poetry. He’s 

the initiator of two poetry collections: Si(gh)lent Night (2017) and 60 Seconds Silence (2020). 

He can be reached @esv_keks on Twitter and Instagram. 

AKSHITA KUMAR is a 16-year-old girl who finds the essence of gratitude within poetry 

and the things which inspire her poetry. Being born in a place where there were farms 

not so far away, she appreciates her heritage in the sweet and juicy mangoes which were 

plucked in hundreds. Now, living miles away from her place of origin, she remembers it 

all and nostalgia seeps out of the mangoes available in the city. She 

often likes to include strong imagery in her poems to show people 

how and what she feels, she aims to make her readers visit the words. 

ANOUSHKA SRIVASTAVA is a Textile Revivalist hailing from the 

land of cultures; India, pursued her Bachelors in Textile Design from 

National Institute of Fashion Technology. She is a passionate, mindful 

and an aspiring designer who is strongly influenced by her deep 

interest in the arts, aesthetics, and culture of India—all places where 

she likes to draw inspiration for her works. ‘‘Chanderi: A Story of 

Traditions and Threads’’ presents an inside look at the real India. 

A.R. SALANDY is a mixed-race writer who travels frequently and has spent 

most of his life in Kuwait jostling between the UK & America. Anthony’s work 

has been published 175 times. Anthony has 2 published chapbooks titled The 

Great Northern Journey (2020, Lazy Adventurer Publishing ) & Vultures (2021, 

Roaring Junior Press). Anthony is the Co-EIC of Fahmidan Journal. 

ASHLEY PEARSON is a junior at Knox College. She is double majoring in 

Biology and Creative Writing with hopes to continue her education in Dental 

School. She hails from Monmouth, Illinois. Her pieces reflect on her upbringing 

in a small town in the American Midwest with acknowledgement of her origins 

in South Korea. Ashley is adopted and identifies as Korean-American. 

ASSIA MESSAOUDI (she/they) is an Algerian poet with a passion for 

harm reduction and social research. Over the years writing became one of 

Assia’s biggest forms of catharsis. Her piece “the fruit of your labour” is in 

memory of her grandfather. In many cultures, sharing fruit is an act of 

love. Due to the language barrier between Assia and her grandfather, 

e eating fruit together was their main form of communication. This 

poem is Assia’s act of love to her grandfather, and an act of love to 

herself. To find out more about Assia, visit assiamessaoudi.com. 

B. PICK is a lesbian poet based in small town Canada. They are an 

Honours B.A. candidate in English and Cultural Studies at Western 

University. When they’re not writing, b. enjoys baking, earl grey tea, and 

jewelry making. They hope to someday bake the perfect bagel. 

CONTRIBUTORS 

BUKUNMI OYEWOLE is a travel and documentary 

photographer who loves to see the world through the lens of his 

camera. He has traveled round Nigeria, visiting over 19 states on 

photo tours and documentaries. One of his many dreams is to 

travel around the world, capturing astonishing moments with his 

camera. 

CHINONYE ALILONU is a Nigerian American high school senior 

exploring her newfound love of poetry. When she isn’t pouring over her 

writing journal, you can find her with her friends, watching kdramas or 

doing her hair. 

GLORIOUS KATE AKPEGAH is an aspiring photographer and poet from 

Cross River State, Nigeria, who finds art liberating and an essential part of 

living, She uses photography and poetry to capture the beauty of nature 

and everyday life. Her pieces ‘‘Sister’’, ‘‘Sunset in the Neighborhood’’ and 

‘‘Home Community’’ were taken during a visit to her family, the photos 

remind Her of home which has always been a happy place. When she’s not 

doing photography or poetry, She’s studying to get an MBBS degree at the 

University of Calabar, Nigeria. 

JP LEGARTE is a Pilipino-American junior at University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Champaign majoring in Creative Writing. He desires to provide spaces through 

his poetry where others can process their own emotions, ponderings, and 

anything else within life. He was born in the Philippines before moving to the 

United States when he was one. His poem “Elastic Memory” details how home/ 

heritage can be described as such because individuals bring home with them 

within treasured memories of places, people, and experiences, and “Younger 

Memoirs” serves as an example of this, expanding upon what JP considers to be 

major parts of his home/heritage. 

KATE ROWBERRY is a Californian high schooler who is inspired by words 

she reads, scenarios she imagines, and events she lives. Her work has been 

recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She enjoys the arts 

of writing and editing; reading is also one of her favorite activities, but 

she is somewhat guilty of tsundoku. That stack of books to read has to 

end at some point, right? 

KAYA DIERKS is a mixed-race writer from the United States and an 

incoming freshman at Yale University. She’s passionate about writing 

contemporary fiction and narrative nonfiction that represents honest 

and unvarnished American experiences. She tweets @kayadierks. 

KAYLEIGH SIM is a Southeast Asian writer from Singapore living 

in San Diego, California, and is currently an Executive Editor for 

Polyphony Lit. Her poems, “papilionanthe” and “burning haibun for 

my ancestry”, are inspired by her experience living far away from her homeland and her 

emotional distance from her roots. Kayleigh loves to write about her Singaporean-Chinese 

heritage, and her work has been published or is forthcoming in Trouvaille Review, Cathartic 

Lit, Intersections Magazine, Poetically Magazine, Second Chance Lit, Interstellar Lit, Aster Lit, 

and elsewhere. 


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CONTRIBUTORS 

CONTRIBUTORS 

LAYAN DAJANI is a filmmaking student 

and self-taught graphic designer from 

Palestine. Her work mostly reflects her 

emotions and thoughts on her life and 

certain issues and themes, and she gets 

inspired a lot by her hometown, nature, 

music and literature. Her piece, “The Home 

That I’ve Never Been To”, Layan explores 

her feelings towards her hometown, 

Palestine; she never visited the nation, but 

longs to visit because it is her home—her 

true and only home. 

MANDIRA PATTNAIK is a poet and fiction 

writer from India. Her work has appeared 

or is forthcoming in Flash International 

Short-Short Magazine, Atlas & Alice, Citron 

Review, amongst others. Her story originally 

appeared in October Hill Magazine (Winter 

2020 Edition). It is drawn from diasporic 

experiences, her own as well as of others. 

Growing up in different cities, Mandira 

identifies with the ‘perpetual outsider’, and 

believes home is where one believes it to be 

and heritage is something one can never shed 

or wish away. Find more of her writings at 

mandirapattnaik.wordpress.com. She also 

can be found on Twitter @MandiraPattnaik. 

MARIA ALEXZA HERNANDEZ is a 

young Australian writer of Filipino 

descent. As an aspiring psychiatrist 

with an affinity for the human psyche, 

Alexza uses writing to explore the 

depths of human nature. She hopes 

that her writing will open the minds 

of her readers and tug at their 

heartstrings while expressing the 

turbulent beauty of life. Alexza’s 

piece, “Letters from Home”, is a 

parallel story following the lives of 

a precolonial Filipina and a young 

OFW. Poetic prose of some sorts, her 

piece is dedicated to the past, present, 

and future people of the Philippines. 

OLIVIA MCCANN is a poet, freelance videographer, 

and prior educator based out of Denver, Colorado. 

She often includes themes of love, feminism, 

solitude, heartbreak, and healing in her work. She 

has submitted and had work accepted into The Fat 

Zine, Coffee People, Drip Zine, Osier Root Zine, and P 

Magazine. She enjoys experimenting with language 

and collaging together poems out of singular random 

words. 

ROSS WALSH [he/him/sé/é] is 

a Wexford-born journalist and 

writer based in Dublin, Ireland. 

He has been writing poetry for 

over a decade now, inspired 

by the stunning landscapes 

of Ireland from the coast of 

Waterford to the boglands of 

Donegal. He has a huge interest 

in history, and dreams of one 

day owning a house where all the 

walls are covered by bookshelves. 

His poem, ‘‘Indulgent Spices’’, 

was written after the death of his 

grandfather and seeks to explore 

the concepts of loss, grief, and 

the heritage left to us by previous 

generations. 

ISSUE THREE CONTRIBUTORS 

TRISHA REDDY is a fourteen-year-old 

author from New Jersey who uses she/ 

her pronouns. She developed a passion 

for writing when she was ten, starting 

with fanfiction. Trisha primarily 

writes fantasy, with strong themes 

of war and corruption. She’s heavily 

inspired by her own experiences as 

a bisexual Indian American, as well 

as the Hindu mythology she grew up 

hearing. “Antebellum” was inspired 

by her sixth-grade obsession with 

the world wars. She drew on typical 

fantasy elements to build a world that 

seems so different than our own on the 

surface but has striking similarities 

underneath. 

MATT HSU is a junior at San Francisco 

University High School in San Francisco, 

California. He works as a poetry/prose editor 

at Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine and 

The Formula. Currently he’s working on a YA 

novel about a lonely assassin. In his spare 

time, he enjoys playing tennis and eating 

dark chocolate. 

MAKENNA DYKSTRA (she/her) is 20 

years old and pursuing an M.A. in English 

Literature at Tulane University in New 

Orleans. She can often be found on Twitter 

@makdykstra or in the local parks, writing, 

reading, or admiring the oak trees. 

NINA SIKANDAR is an eighteen year old living on 

the southernmost point of mainland Asia. When she’s 

not writing her best lines at 2AM, she’s learning how 

to code and dabbles in editorial illustration. 

ZOE FRIEDLAND was born in 

Seattle, USA, where they are 

currently studying classics, 

english, and biology at the 

University of Washington. they 

tweet @chalcidoidea. 

OLGA MUSIAL (she/her) is 

a mostly-fiction-sometimesinspired-to-write-poetry 

writer 

and high school student with a 

passion for words and literature. 

She lives in Warsaw, Poland, and 

when not writing, you can find her in used 

bookstores, where she often finds inspiration 

for her pieces. She is a dedicated Garamond 

enthusiast. For more literary endeavours, follow 

her on Twitter at @olgamusial. 

SONAKSHI SRIVASTAVA is an MPhil candidate 

at Indraprastha University, Delhi. She previously 

graduated from the University of Delhi, and 

her works have appeared in Rhodora Magazine, 

OddMagazine, Feminism in India. She has been 

the recipient of the national story writing 

competition, “MyStory Contest” organized by 

TATA LitLive, the international literature festival 

of Mumbai, thrice. 

SYNA MAJUMDER loves to 

write about mocktails, bass 

lines, and horrible people. Their 

work has been published in 

The Daily Drunk, Paper Crane, 

and Cathartic Lit Mag and is 

forthcoming in the Bitchin’ 

Kitsch, among others. You 

can find her @fuzz_pedals on 

Instagram. 


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THE GLOBAL YOUTH 

REVIEW 

ISSUE III

ISSUE III: Heritage

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