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By Inayah Fathima Faeez Tomorrow looms unsure, muffled by the deep Thumbs twiddling, barriers never-ending, failure and nothing to reap At the shore lie the choices, imposing, leading to journeys impossible to see Below the crashing waters lies what might or might not be And it all comes down to the passion for a future so azure Love and laughter and smiles and support make success so easy to lure The turbulence retreats into the night, splashing out of the way Newborn vision

By Inayah Fathima Faeez Some part of us is cold and shrivelled, In a body of seemingly endless depth. Some part of us is heavy and dishevelled, Misery filling an unending breadth.  Some part of us is warm and blooming,  Alive with tenderness birthed from memory.  Some part of us is carefree and breathing, With warmth bandaging wounds of misery. Some part of us waits for an afternoon,  Where there are no holes of absence to sew. Some part of us waits for a full moon, Under whi

By Inayah Fathima Faeez I’m not allowed to go up to the attic anymore. It’s an ancient breath captured in the stagnant cold. I’m not allowed to disturb it. The staircase ripples beneath the moonlight. When I plod to the top, the ladder is inviting me to climb.  There’s an impenetrable chill that cascades upon me as I enter the room. It is tinged with shades of memories long forgotten. The first thing I see on the desk is a pocketbook, one that sighs as it opens.  He enters th

By Sydney L. Wensel No house of any God could baptize  The bellyache or bother out of me.  The ocean keeps calling though— Salt chuck sieving through this  Receptacle of misbehavior and flesh— Each of its five regions learning  A different element of my name—  Its texture, its wounding power,  Its prodigious and sovereign taste.  The vastness of my temple—  Imprinted with out-of-date  Directive scripture that details  How to become, and be—  Dwarfed in the saline waves, as I

By Sydney L. Wensel This hope becomes a bezoar— A thatch of impossible knots— In my aching, tangled tummy—  Threads of faith and foretaste  Coiling deep and low,  Hooked by your beckoning fingers  And come-hithering— Hungry fruit caught on a hand  Reading soft, secret notes. I wait for an evident invite,          stark words—           needs laid bare. For if there is a good night I would not go gently into, That night is yours—  Nude and Vitruvian,  I’d burn amongst the star

By Sydney L. Wensel You are neither a birdcage nor a coal mine,  But your body is kissed with canaries—  Lacerations trickling out your golden blood— Unkind souvenirs from bastards,   False friends and their palmed daggers. How I wish you had not needed to be strong, Brave, resilient— old soul Indigene,  Kintsugi-made, jaw set firm,       Lips unquivering—  As the trickle stops in the cold. How I wish you had not needed to be bold— When they tried to capture                  

By Sydney L. Wensel Your forceful knocks thunder through my house— You’re tired of pushing abacus beads, Tired of keeping score— how many days it’s been,  But scared to reach “I’ve lost count”. The tally is bleak, and the regret is wearing you thin—  Making a pitiful meal of you.  Your hope gnaws on what remains in the silence— When I don’t come running,  Sliding on the hardwood, and throwing the door open,  Panting— hair and habit unruly, leaning  Like abstract art in the fr

By Riya Goswami Glory to Mary, Mother of God, Protect us from sin and discord.  Guide us on every step of life, through sadness, joy and even strife.  Heal our soul from the wounds of sin,  We pray to you from deep within.  We bow to you queen of heaven, save us from the deadly seven. Make us obedient and faithful to God, in trials and triumphs, with grace we trod. By Riya Goswami

By Riya Goswami Preface Once upon a time, there were three rebels who overthrew an evil queen. That is a story of the past ... The citizens of Nordostia needed strong leaders, so the girls bravely left their families to lead Nordostia into a new golden era. Now, Rosabel, Katherina, and Audrina were co-queens of Nordostia with their friend Ben Joe, serving as the Prime Minister Section 1 The girls were trying to find somebody. Their friend Ben Joe’s sister had been missing sin

By Riya Goswami Once upon a time, there were three rebels. But how did these girls become rebels? Our story starts in a small town north of Paris in the year 6048 CE. That town is quite insignificant except for one of its inhabitants. “Good morning Monsieur Baton,”  Rosabel says. “How are you doing?” Little does she know, she is the most gossiped about person in town.  “She’s so odd!” says Monsieur Baton. “She’s always been so weird,” says Julianne Antoinet.  “I can’t believe

By Panagiota Zikou When I cast my gaze upon the stars and seas, a curse, a darkened day awakens, just beyond the breath of the northern wind. And the sudden bitter smile dissolves into aching visions, fleeting glances — for the eye beholds a hated, ill-fated face, and silence hastens to bury the mind in thoughts of death. Dead hopes stretch across the horizon, beneath the dying glow of a radiant, Luciferian sun. Gods — mingled and merciless foes — praise that shadowed day for

By Panagiota Zikou Just as decay  strikes the frozen marble,  man,  with untrained wings of struggle,  meets the passage of his life.  The years await us,  the portraits of eternal life,  where in our inertia we forgot we exist,  here, on the ground we tread.  The future awaits us,  more than it awaits the living and the finite.  You, O adorned humans,  Princes of the moon, behold:  this tainted taste of the barren body  that stands and watches history,  the envious cowardice

By Panagiota Zikou And if each wound we bore became our death —  what then, little warrior, untutored god?  Would we live but a moment,  or forever?  Would we ever have been at all? Our flesh is spun from journeying;  if you slayed me,  you would never return —  I am afraid. Yet if we lived unending,  you would never rise as banner,  nor as a clear wound.  But if they scarred you endlessly,  the desperate and I  we would never have been at all. The world is boundless,  etched

By Adesope Adisa I dance till my feet bleed. Jolly and loud— that’s the jest of me. Louder and louder, newer moves find me— hypnotizing jazz hands, funky knees. How much more till they like me? Attention— this dancing disease. Bleeding behind grins, eyes like darts searching for knowing. Heat crawls up the side of his face— strobe lights licking and intimate. Only the lights see the tears seeking refuge in his ducts. Heat. Hot movement. Rapid breath. Weighted heart. Sun down

By Adesope Adisa Badmen know the weight of Tuesday. A dirty knife draws blood from a floored body pressure and malicious pleasure meeting the meat of his heart, while the sun reminds us it is Tuesday again. “Badmen,” Mom called them— not to describe their character but a title they chose and wore like a monarch’s crown. Badmen stalk the market on Tuesdays, the farms on Thursdays, the bank on Wednesdays— and, last Friday, met my father on his walk to the pub. Badmen— men I hat

By Adesope Adisa Post-hurl. the pause before the next wave of sick is the bane of my interspiritual existence. Suspended between life and death, between purpose and my present. Is there a point to this? My belief in myself is inconsistent— an entity I blame when things fall apart. Sometimes I mistake comfort for invincibility. Maybe self-reassurance made me too cocky to prepare for failure. I isolate myself from myself. Today, I seek comfort from the internal changes in my bo

By Adesope Adisa The choir hymns swelled, filling the building with pride—the kind that squashes men’s egos like insects. The pastor stood tall, his voice booming about salvation, love, and sacrifice. I swear I was listening, but I lost him somewhere around the one-hour mark. The fan’s weak gust kept me alive. Without it, I’d be out the door in minutes. The air reeked of sweat, perfume, and simmering judgment. It wasn’t God I smelled—it was people, and I wasn’t here for them.

By Adesope Adisa The essence of my gender and being a woman has been something I struggled to grapple in my words on said, glances observed and in the synthesis of my surroundings in my subconscious. There was no safe place to be feminine- Ideologically, emotionally or practically.  As a kid, the boys would police our behaviour. “She’s too manly ", "too girly," "fast," "prude" etc. They dictated standards and policed our existence, unknowly replicating the sentiments of the w

By Peacock Secrets When they do it vs. when we do it: Don't be in the minority because then, even your own mother tongue speaks against you. Like when we do it, it's called Black nationalism , But when they do it, it's White  supremacy! Hah! Y'all! I'm going to fix this: Here it is: White inferiority complex. You're welcome! When it was us, they exclaimed: " Muslim fundamentalist! Islamists! Terrorists!" When it was them, they forgot about their religion Saying: “January 6t

By Peacock Secrets I was small, naive, and tender, toddling in my Pull-Ups, when those who loved me jabbed me in my tiny heart. Surgically stole a sliver of it, to harden, to sharpen, to shiv me with it. ​ Hurt me with my own heart. Sliced me for my sensitivity. Carved into me for caring. Fearing and envying me for daring to be an open-eyed child— a triple threat: Smart, plus sweet, plus spirited! That's just too much! ​ Extracting weeping from me was easy. Manipulation, chao