Poetry

By Gabriel Lyra

I have an anxious feeling
growing inside my stomach
spreading like water on a flat surface
a virus in a weakened immune system

trying to get out through my throat
hitting the doors of my fingernails
trying to escape through every tiny strand of hair

giving me cold sweats
all the way from my head
to the nerves from my legs

making every muscle come alive
every next heartbeat stronger than the last one
like drums coming closer and closer to my ears

blocking my steady breathing
feeding from the air from my lungs
and the liquid in my veins

making me lose track of the days 
of the weeks I’ve been falling
and the hours, minutes I got left.

I have an anxious feeling
that someday
this feeling
is going to kill me.

By Jessica Jordan

The color blue hits you in waves like
baby blues that flirt with you from across the room
at an old rusty bar somewhere downtown.
Cobalt veins running through your bare body like a map, 
as they slowly trace each road with the tips of icy fingers.
Sapphire gems wrapped around your neck and wrist
blind you with their potential beauty,
while you stare out into the midnight sky trying to find
where the skyline meets the ocean,
thinking of a time when blue was just a color
and not the marks left behind from their touch.
Indigo nights seem to last forever
as you race down the highway in search of
a new color to love. 

By Jessica Jordan

I could write about the flowers that bloom 
in front of my parents' white shed.
But then I think about how each year 
when the weather gets colder, 
and the nights get darker, those same flowers
that bloomed bright yellows, pinks, and purples
become shriveled stems of brown,
and piles of crisp broken leaves and petals 
gather around the bottom of their flowerpot grave.

By Janelis Duran

I.	A Letter to My Eating Disorder

Most days, you go to sleep hungry. 
Surviving on long-forgotten meals and their scrapbook picture memories.   
On the feeling of cool water hitting an empty stomach.
On the ice, and the way it melts perfectly in your mouth. 
On air, for the days that even water and ice become too much for you to handle.
On lying to others about your recovery, when really you’re just dying. 
And I can’t help but ask WHY? 
Why? What did the body do to warrant this type of abuse?
In which every bathroom remembers your name. 
Your name… is… My pride. 
It’s losing 10 pounds in a week. 
It's bending over and letting others marvel at your spine. 
It's letting them stare at your thigh gap. 
It’s a joke about weighing 95 pounds on a good day.
Every day is a good day. Right? 
When every bathroom scale judges your weight.
Your name… is… The skeleton in my closet. 
It's my second-grade secret. 
It’s lunch boxes filled with half-empty water bottles and gum. 
It’s leaving the dinner table 5 times in 20 minutes. 
How many calories are in this meal?
It's the calculator in my head, never stopping. 
It's missing periods and wondering why?
Your name... is… My shame. 
It's my long-awaited apology to my body.

II. An Ode/Apology to My Body

Body please forgive me. Forgive me for all that I have done. It's not healthy to drink so much water that you become a bathtub for my organs. My organs become floating loofahs drifting inside all that empty space. Body forgive me. For ripping away the parts of you that I hate. For testing blades across your skins, for cutting you open just to confirm that you too can bleed. Body forgive me. For making up excuses on why I didn't feed you. For starving in hopes you will become thinner. For forgetting to breathe. For prioritizing work, a game, a good book, over making sure that you were taken care of. Body forgive me. Forgive my negligence. For finding pride in your pain. Body forgive me. For not being able to ignore the calculator in my head, it's like trying to ignore subtitles while watching a movie. Body forgive, for not being able to love you the way you deserve to be loved. Body forgive me, I am sorry. Sorry for being ashamed of you. For constantly finding myself picking away the imperfection. Sharp edges, loose parts, boxy hips, and chest. Trying to change them. Make them perfect. And I’m sorry for hating the womanhood you have given me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for still hurting. Body forgive me. For still lying about it. Body forgive me, for I’m still learning. Learning how to love your everything. Learning how to do the easy things. Like, eating when I am hungry. Learning to say I am beautiful and mean it. Learning how to twist my tongue around words that resemble the truth. Learning that we are both survivors and not one pair of prying eyes or leering faces, or angry words, can take away all the things we have fought for. Body forgive me, know that you are beautiful, even on those days, I do not think it to be true. So until the day comes, when I’m no longer ashamed of you, body please forgive me.  

By Madeline Cincala

Lacuna /ləˈkjunə/
Noun: An unfilled space or interval; a gap

I was born in Hubei, China in May of 2002
left at the hospital soon after birth
with no trace of my own identity.
My birthday, an estimate,
my name, given by my parents?
I can’t say.
I’ve never gone by that name.

I was adopted in 2001, before I was even me,
retrieved by mom in June of 2003.
My name is now Madeline Qi Cincala.
Qi- the last connection
to whom I could’ve been.

Qi holds meaning,
it is by definition,
a circulating life force.
Yet I am no force of any kind.
I am tired and lost
disconnected from one of the biggest parts of me.

I celebrate Lunar New year,
one of the most important Chinese holidays,
not with nin gao and bountiful parties,
but with westernized take out:
General Tso chicken and lo mein
tweaked to cater to the American palate
lacking in spices and authenticity.

I once dreamed of someday wearing qipao,
traditional Chinese wedding attire:
brocade silk, colred red for good fortune,
adorned with intricate golden embroidery,
yet I feel I am unworthy of such privilege.
I am a whitewashed Asian, as they say—
I know not of the culture, or of its significance.
So, do I really deserve to wear such beauty?

The whiteness instilled in me has made me ignorant—
oblivious, blissfully unaware of Asian struggles.
My privilege has shielded me—blinded me.
So, do I really deserve to have a say in it?

Despite my many efforts,
the language and culture of China
becomes beast of its own—
a beast in which I lack the resources
to know and understand in full.
So, does that make me a bad Asian?
Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.

Not trying hard enough
to know the language
not trying hard enough
to learn the culture
not trying hard enough
to meet what people would expect of me
as an Asian.

No, I don’t speak the language.
No, I don’t know the culture.
No, I don’t eat dogs or cats.
No, I’m not good at math.
No, I’m not stingy with money.
No, I don’t put chopsticks in my hair.
No, I don’t want to be a doctor.
No, I don’t fall into your stereotypes.

I am more than that.
I am a middle ground between
my heritage and my upbringing.
I know little of my culture, yet still
I am targeted for micro-aggressions, 
racism, stereotyping and fetishization.

I am my tanned skin
and my coarse black hair
that is too stubborn to style.
I am my small frame and stature
that is so often fetishized.
I am my ‘almond-shaped’ eyes
that have always been a target
for racist remarks and gestures.

I am a burning curiosity
for whom my birth parents were
whose smile I have
and whose personality I take after.
I will forever long to know
if I have a brother or sister
if my family still thinks about me.
Was I just a mistake?
Who could I have been?

I am the guilt I hold inside
for wanting to know more
for expressing my longing
for writing this poem.
I do not want to sound ungrateful.
I have been given so much.
But curiosity killed the cat, 
and satisfaction brought it back,
and I know I will never get my satisfaction.

I am Qi Chun Shan
a name I have never gone by.
a name that’s lost its meaning.
a name that is still mine.

I am my heritage, and my upbringing—
my longing and my curiosity.
I am my guilt and my passion—
my struggles and my strengths.
I am Madeline Qi Cincala,
and I am Qi Chun Shan.
Maybe then, I am a force of some kind.

By Kameo Chambers

Today’s a new day!
The birds are barking, 
the windows frothing,
and there is yellow on the walls.

Today’s a new day!
There are peanut cherries,
apple-plum berries,
and turnips that taste like Skittles.

It’s a new day!
The sun is sublime
and my mental is going gooey.
I’m not entertaining those thoughts.

Those “Everything is going bad” thoughts.
The everyday “I’m so lonely and sad” thoughts.
I’ll get out of that looped fantasy land  
and create one of my own.

A home for me and me alone.
A world I call my own.
Where everything is upside down,
especially all frowns.