Girlhood
pink lemonade stained lips, sticky fingers pinch flames
hovering over dripping candles, open windows as the seasons change.
capillaries strained under her cheeks, she drew smiling faces
on her wrists and hid from the simmering heat haze in low roofed
buildings. strings of seaweed, quiet showers.
she stirs sugar cane juice in
clear glasses where the ice clinks and the flies buzz. bring it to her lips
and it tastes bleached, like chlorine.
the second thing she did that night was softly drift upwards from deep
under the lake’s glistening waters, face breaking the surface as it
blooms under moonlight’s eerie gaze. silver shines as water
droplets run down her cheeks, seashells line the curb.
the first thing she did on that early summer quiet evening,
written in cherry seeds and headphone static,
was drown.
Raha Zaman is a Bengali-American high school senior in Michigan. She has received recognition from the Scholastics Art and Writing Awards is forthcoming in the Eunoia Review. She enjoys reading, watching movies, and listening to music.
Submerge
Drowning usually goes unnoticed by onlookers. The body’s reaction to the intake of water into the lungs is silent & involves only the slightest of movements. There are myths that the body resists & thrashes for help, but those are myths. The body, at a certain point, is simply past fighting. If on the occasion an onlooker notices the drowned party, the victim is often unable to reach out, take hold of the arms of the rescuer. People who survive drowning usually have nightmares years after. In dreams, they are unable to save others. Friends turn to ash. Lovers fall backwards from cliffs. Firstborns sink facedown in pools of spit. The dreamer can only watch as the surfaces above them disappear as the waves climb higher as the world shimmers & shimmers.
Christina Pan is a student from NYC. Her work is published/forthcoming in Vagabond City Lit, Eunoia Review, and Interstellar Lit. She is fascinated with the idea of the modern myth.
home
apartments can be infidels if you
don’t leash them well. they can flee
to their owners with the windowpanes
shut. latches locked. houses can grow
old. can tease you with the lives you
might have lived in better places. my
mother knows home as the roads of
Jamaica. cracked. brimming with spirit
and spilled sorrel. my cousins know
home as the rain in England where tea
is taken as a measure of pride. today,
I know home as candlelight. the scent of
petrichor after heat-washed drought.
home is learning love languages with
index cards and sticky notes knowing
there is no test. no pop quiz or way of
failure. home is following the midnight
sun away from anxious ghost tugging
heavy on my spine like anchors afraid
to forget ocean floor. home is wheezing
laughter. unrestrained. provoked by
compassion and a flourish of trust.
someday, I might chart this feeling as
Magellan did the globe. as astronomers
do the craters of Mars when night is
clear and crisp. for now, I do not count
my steps toward or away from four letters.
for now, my home is no finite point but
the tangible yearning for ease. for now,
I look to the sky and call myself her tenant.
if only for now.
Monica Mills is a Jamaican-American writer and poet. She is from Maplewood, New Jersey and has a bachelor’s degree in political science and English from Rutgers University. Monica’s recent work appears or is forthcoming in journals such as West Trade Review, Amethyst Review, New Verse News, and Eunoia Review among others. She enjoys rainy days and ginger tea.
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