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A Past of Protest

Broken Mug by Claudia Wysocky (New York, 14)

4/5/2024

 
​It was a cold, clear day in the second week of April.
I remember that it was a Saturday and that I was in the kitchen
making coffee for the two of us.
I remember taking the cup from me and holding it up to the light
to see if it was clean. There was a smear of coffee on the rim,
but the coffee inside was still clear.
I remember how the light shone through the coffee
and made the liquid glow.
I remember how he stood over me then, and how my heart
fluttered like a bird. I froze.
He took the cup from my hand and threw it against the wall.
It shattered into a thousand pieces and I remember watching
as they fell to the floor like rain.

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DAPHNE by Tapti Bose (India, 45)

3/21/2024

 
I was the river god’s daughter,
And a daughter is nothing more than
a blank page after all,
waiting to be written.
When Apollo was my pursuer
my father,
transformed me to
a laurel tree.
It did make great poetry
of course;
and there was justice too
in the sense of order
or what they call balance,
a cleverness;

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What Will Be Mine by Avery Timmons (Illinois, 22)

2/4/2024

 
          Rapunzel had been waiting years for this moment.
          She let the information slip casually, playing it off as a mistake, but knowing that Mother Gothel would be furious with her for allowing anyone else into the tower — especially a prince. Therefore, she was expecting a punishment. So, when Mother Gothel pulled a pair of shears from her cloak, Rapunzel acted quickly.
          She seized the witch’s wrist, twisting it as hard as she could. Mother Gothel let out a cry of rage, not only at Rapunzel’s defiance, but also at her unexpected strength. But Rapunzel did not falter; after a moment longer of struggle, she was able to tear the shears from Gothel’s grip and pierce them straight through her heart. 
          Rapunzel pulled the shears out of Gothel’s chest — allowing the body to collapse on the floor with a thud — and stood up, pushing her hair back over her shoulders as she admired her work, chest heaving with her heavy breaths. Of course, there was the matter of getting rid of the body and cleaning up the copious amount of blood before the prince arrived for their nightly meeting; she couldn’t have him suspecting anything was wrong — not with what she had planned for him. 
          It was exceedingly difficult, but Rapunzel managed to get the job done before nightfall. She dragged Gothel’s body to the closet that held her cleaning supplies — including the mop that she needed to clean the blood that was now smeared across the dark hardwood floors of the tower. ​

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Legacies Past by Farrah (Italy, 36)

2/4/2024

 
​How they threw themselves
into projects like us, poured
their secret desires and fears
and fetishes into our lands,
our laps, all to starve their
own souls of humility, and
paint our faces with their
reflections. Polarity might
breed division but Nuance
makes way for indifference

​And wasn’t it good men who
stood by and did nothing
that were the ones who let evil win?

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Fire Maiden by Mary Stella Scott (United Kingdom, 29)

12/10/2023

 
            On the furthest edge of the coldest corner of the steppe, a herder lived in a yurt with his three
children. The herder’s wife had died years before, so it was just the four of them who huddled
around the great stove in the tent’s centre, faces blackened by soot. They were bored and
achy, for when the winter bit like this no-one could go outside. For days and days they had
had only each other for company and tempers, which had started out thick and mellow as yak
milk, were running thin.
​            “I wish I could check on the sheep,” fretted the youngest son, who loved the outdoors
and all that breathed there.
​            “I wish I could visit my friends,” sighed the oldest son, who enjoyed the village and
all who danced there.
​            “I wish I could trade for coffee,” grumbled the herder, who as a father thrice-over was
reliant on the stuff. “What good is a fire if you’ve nothing to brew on it?”
​            ​The daughter of the yurt, who was also the eldest child, opened her mouth to speak -
but before she could, a great flurry of snow blew down the narrow chimney and snuffed the
fire right out.! By a stroke of bad luck the father’s words had been whipped up by the north
wind and carried to the Fire Maiden, a goddess much revered in those wintery parts. The
herder’s thoughtless words badly offended her.

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Understanding Mother by Amian Bent (India, 20)

12/10/2023

 
​‘Mother’ – the word, to me,
Has always been my other
An entity quite apart from me
Until I saw her
In that childhood picture
Gaze gleaming, smile beaming –
A reflection of what I’d been –
A burning light among her siblings
But to reconcile that image
With the present
I had been looking at the wrong place –
Her eyes, in my eternity, have always been dead –
I just had to look into her words
Splayed across my skin –

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Iphigenia by Tapti Bose (India, 45)

12/10/2023

 
​I was the princess
whose blood,
spurred the winds of war
to Ilium,
and launched a thousand ships.
To my father,
I was but an answer
to the Gods,
a piece for appeasement.
To my mother,
I was first
a bitter question,
then a bloody cry for justice;
and in between the answer
that came
before the question
I was only a daughter,
Not yet Iphigenia.

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JIMMY TOOK THE HIT by Lawrence Miles (New York, 54)

12/10/2023

 
The evangelists were getting louder
bending the ears of presidents
but at the same time
the backlash was growing

They needed a sacrifice
so lots were drawn
and they chose Bakker
he was too loud
And they didn’t like his wife

So they sent a temptress his way
and he fell
and everyone focused their eyes on him
​
All his accumulated wealth
the power of God through success
through positive thinking
through investing your hard earned dollars
so he could spread Jim’s word
disguised as His word
it was all over

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Iphigenia’s Farewell by Huda Ismail (Egypt, 24)

12/10/2023

 
I am someone that Death did not choose
The waters, silenced with a warning
The fruit of love, dangled before my eyes
A deer caught in the headlights
The sins of the father, a haunting reminder
That the lies of men bring the demise of the less fortunate
At Aulis, I plead to you
with Heaven in your eyes
And Hell in my father’s
I am someone that Death did not choose
I am as sacred as the holy wars you wage
I am as lustrous as the blade you lay
on my neck
on my neck

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Do you remember by Elizabeth Beck (Kentucky)

12/10/2023

 
the first song you memorized,
singing along, maybe snapping
with the beat? Not a nursery
rhyme nor lullaby and not
the alphabet song. The tune

you heard on the radio
wormed its way into your soul
so deeply, every time you hear
it played, nostalgia floods
your heart, a strange sense
of déjà vu. Maybe you smell
​
coconut and chlorine or even
popcorn and pine trees. Memory
defined by melody and love
remembered within beats.

Read More
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