She opens the trunk of her car. Trash bags tumble down, coming untied. I glimpse girls’
clothes, probably juniors’ sizes, a flower-print backpack, sandals, and headphones. She crams the
bags full again, her eyes narrowed, her face drawn. Her hair’s disheveled. Graying. She reeks of
sweat. Seeing me staring at her, she flips the bird, rattling off a string of swearwords.
​          Jerk.
​          She climbs back into her car and peels out of the parking lot, her tires screeching on the
hot pavement. I haul her crap inside, all twenty-eight bags of donations, muttering to myself. The
job done, I grab today’s newspaper. Reckless driver kills seventeen-year-old girl, the headline
shouts.
​          There’s a picture of the victim.
​          She looks just like that woman.

I long to touch her but fear
the lash of rejection
my touch may
incite.

Sometimes, she needs a mothers
love, though to voice
such a need would leave
a soured scent on her
skin no amount of
perfume could
erase.

Occasionally, she emerges
like a frightened rabbit
from the grip of the
unreliable narrator
claiming squatters
rights in a recess
at the back
of her
head.

And all I can do is wait.
​
Wait on the sidelines
in the hope one day she’ll
throw the ball my way
and I will still
have it in
me to
catch
it.

​ghosts
we are like ghosts in an old library.
not quite knowing what we’re doing
or what we’re looking for.
searching for. if that is, in fact, what we are
doing.
a tether so forged in the fires of friendship.
two sisters, not of the same blood
but kin just the same.
two apparitions, two spirits who know how to be alone together.
feel that quaking sadness together, and still have no answers.
no resolution, just an open desire
to live, to experience more.
there is something to the act of exploration that is healing.

It is March again 
with drowsy Dahlias on my terrace swaying
to the tune of the gentle zephyr

As I hide my face under my thick blanket
I realize that the piercing winter is departing 
with wistful eyes that are moist with tears
ruminating on what you put me through years ago

This act of being a champion in forgiving and forgetting 
is slowly becoming difficult to continue
how long can one hide? there is a limit to everything

How can I conceal what is inside my heart: a fusion of brokenness and light
this light has been suppressed for so long that it has started doubting its potency
how can I hide that which has made my countenance perpetually grim?

A man without limbs
grapples with negativity
to function properly.
 
She is not
just my mother.
 
The voracious nooks
and crannies
of this house
have been nudging me:
who will tend to us, now?
whose smile will
warm us up?

Women keep secrets all the time. It was my mom who taught me to keep my secrets. She believed we
women were meant to swallow our pain, our questions, our discomfort for men, for anyone really. When I
would ask her why she would answer, “That’s just the way things are.” She felt pride about how well she
could keep her secrets of unhappiness. But the truth was, it was no secret. It was written all over her face,
in her tone, in her living. The only ones oblivious are ourselves.

I have secrets of how I lost my virginity. There was coaxing, manipulation, and the giving of Xanax to
help keep me quiet. Most of my sexual relationships have been pills to swallow, both literally and
metaphorically. Lies, abuse, and manipulation from boys led to the constant stream of pill-taking, to
normalize all the things I had to keep secret. Friends would talk about their first times, and I would make
up some story so as not to get asked, “Are you okay?” I had no idea if I was okay, which is what the pills
and all the drinking were for. I didn’t want the question in the room, so I made up a normal story, a story
anyone could believe. Shame comes with secrets, and eventually, shame eats us all whole. You start to
feel disgusting that you have things to hide. Not because you did anything wrong, but because they
happened and you regret them, hoping they would go away forever.

––––

The room was tiny. $975 a month, and yet my suitcase just barely fit into the open patch of floor
between the bed and the desk. Jumbles of my clothing covered every available surface, half
sorted into piles. It was small, but it was home. Or rather, it was going to be. 

Despite the muggy heat of the Toronto summer, the first thing I had done upon entering the room
was rush to the window. Cracking it open, I was accosted by the clamor of the city. Car horns
honked, and street cars rattled. People in expensive suits scuttled below me, eyes scanning their
phones, hands clutching their lattes. The skyscrapers across the street appraised me from beneath
scrunched eyebrows, their roofs stretching up to touch the cerulean sky. 

Climate-controlled air rushed out and in crept the smell of grease from the corner hotdog stand,
woven together with the nauseating stench of the subway. It was all so overwhelming. So loud.
So foreign.

What an adventure I told myself, pausing to look in the closet mirror and bare my teeth like a
used car salesman.

​I so often ignore these things in a futile attempt for survival, 
But I know they will erupt into something bigger.
What will start as something so small, so miniscule,
Will eventually erupt into something I cannot contain with any amount of perfection. 
It’s like waiting for a pot to boil, except you forget about it and leave and the house burns down. 
You still have to sleep in the house, though, because it’s your only house and you’re a child. 
So you lay down in the remains, where there are no walls, only boards, and try to sleep. 
Maybe one night it will storm and there won’t be a roof or walls to protect you.
When this happens you will just let it hit you and freeze.
You will welcome the numbness.
The next day you will get up and start building the house again.
It will not stand long, but what’s important is that you rebuild anyway. 

I like the girl dogs the most,  
how they care so easily,  
licking and curling around their pups.  
I like their girl dog greetings, 
Wiggle your tooshie, honey, wag your tail! 
Is that what you mean when you call me a “bitch”? 
Because somewhere inside the smooth 
skin of my body, there beats a small  
but weighted howl flowing from life’s force. 
Don’t you want to know? 
Don’t you want to place your hand over my chest and feel 
the heavy beating affectionate creation 
that thinks, that knows, 
it will bond with the newborn.  
And yet after all I’ve done,  
you still snarl “bitch.”

​Fair Luna, paintress of the night,
Employs her brush with polished skill
Upon our quadrate roof to fill
It with the colours cream and white.

Men viewing from skyscrapers might
Deem it a pink sheet—such a thrill!
Fair Luna, paintress of the night,
Employs her brush with polished skill.
​
This roof looks pocked to naked sight;
Therefore, it takes the shielding spill
Of moon-made hues (like man's strong will
to paint his griefs with laughter bright).
Fair Luna, paintress of the night,
Employs her brush with polished skill.

          ​Liberty emerged from the ocean, flicked the deliciously salty sea off her eyes and thought: don’t
be scared. Two more days only.
          She turned to the beach. On the golden sand, the umbrellas looked like smarties on
cookie dough, baked by the shining sun. I am not going to get stuck on this island, she reassured
herself: I am not. I am going back home.
          The sea water, cool and transparent like liquid aquamarine, glazed her temples. She
shivered. Nothing good came out of that island. It was a cruel island. You could not stay on that
island. There was no work, no money, no legacy, on that island, where one struggled, died and
was forgotten. That was the destiny of all the people she had ever met until the day she had left
for the Mainland. It had been her mother’s destiny too.
          Why she had returned for the first time in ten years for that weekend, after she had denied
her roots for a decade, she didn’t know. To show her native land how well she had escaped Her?
How she had succeeded outside her domain and got her college degrees, life experiences,
friends; her new house, her office in a skyscraper, her husband to be? She smiled, admiring the
diamond on her ring finger.
          The plane tickets had been mysteriously cheap.
          The idea of going back to her hometown had made her feel uneasy, but she had
convinced herself: three days only. Three days of sun, tasty food and relaxation: the only good
things that land could offer a human being.
​          If she wasn’t there to show off her new life to the island that had imprisoned her for
almost two decades, she realized, then she was there for the short vacation she needed after all
the hard work she had put in her job that year.
          A fresh breeze hit her face, awaking her from her stream of thoughts, and cooled the
water around her. Liberty frowned. The mistral had left the island the night before: it never
returned so quickly. She shivered again.
          ​She set her eyes on the sunbaked shore and pushed forward.

In the name of Jesus the Messiah,
I declare that I am born out of God,
Carved and painted with the envisionment of evil.
Black hair runs down my curves and red lips, sweet with sin,
Make me a victim of temptation and vengeful lust.

Father forgive me for the falsehood
Of desecration of holy marriage unions
And Adam's taste for the Apple-
The truth is choked in his throat
and in the blood of the first murder on record.
​
In the name of Jesus the Messiah
I declare that I have never harmed a child-
My spirits find safety under my wings and wisdom in my fall.
I embrace the moon and it's four stages,
worship my dark, inner feminine energies, and Her divine manifests.

A woman whimpers more than her child will even,
beaten by pushes of words piercing her heart to pieces,
and fists quick to teach her the sign language of a beast.
Her tears become the ink of this pen.

Every morning, she shapeshifts from the beauty of the night into a mourner,
For every breaking of the dawn kills the night’s beauty,
and mocks how short the night that swallows her day’s
grieving is.

At noon, she is denied sunlight.
Her skin becomes where fists carrying abuse land,
and her mouth is a gagged voiceless thing.
​
The night is where she tells the day’s experience.
Her body caresses the serenity of darkness,
and pray to stay there forever, for a new dawn is a nightmare.

Content Warning: This short story includes scenes of bullying, violence, and slight gore


          The stone hit Ava in the back of the head. She stumbled and fell, spilling her schoolbooks
out of her arms and onto the dirt road in front of her. Gravel dug into her palms as she threw out
her hands to break her fall. Her knees skidded painfully across the ground.
​          “Have a nice trip!” a boy’s voice called out from behind her, to a chorus of laughter. “See
you next fall!”
​          Ava brushed her long, black hair out of her face. She was hollow-boned and delicate,
looking far younger than her 11 years. Her dark eyes welled with tears. She quickly wiped them
away with the frayed cuff of her sweater.
​          A chilly autumn wind blew across the Kansas field, causing the corn stalks lining the
road to whisper in the breeze. Somewhere in the distance, faint and far away, a gas-powered
tractor growled. It was probably from Mr. Conklin’s farm – he was the only farmer in the area
who was wealthy enough to own a tractor – but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t close enough to help
her. Nobody was. She was on her own.
​          A group of kids about her age, two girls and a boy, ran past her. One of the girls stuck out
her tongue. The other laughed. Their shoes kicked up clouds of dust into Ava’s face as they
passed.
​          ​The girls were sisters, Sarah and Beth Winters. They were pretty and clean, with crisp red
bows tied in their flaxen hair. They were the kinds of girls who had everything they needed and
got everything they wanted; they never had to ask for anything twice. They wore matching blue
dresses with warm red sweaters that looked like they were bought from a department store. Not
handmade, like Ava’s shapeless brown smock. They weren’t twins – Sarah was two years older
than Beth – but they were inseparable. Even now, they held hands as they skipped away into the
distance. Ava hated them both, equally.

Seventeen years ago,
my father named me Aijia.
Ai for love, Jia for family.
If you put it together, mhea said,
it means “loving,” or “family loving.”
Eight years later,
Didi—younger brother came.
His name is Qijia and I yelped in joy
when I saw how it matched mine.
But when I asked father about it,
he responded with a Chinese proverb:
Qijia, Zhiguo, Pingtianxia:
Order your family,
Rule your country,
Bring peace to the world.

When I was 8,
society showed me that I could be unstoppable.
That the world could be mine to command
and the moon mine to capture.
That even if I overshot the moon,
fingertips barely brushing past igneous,
the stars would be there to catch me,
engulfing me in starlight and acceptance.
At 8, I called myself limitless.

And at 9,
they called me delicate.
Through eyes instead of tongues,
skimming over my raised hand,
and bypassing the wrist flicking and unconscious bouncing,
Scanning the room for a “strong boy,”
Someone who didn’t crack under the pressure of a broken nail.
At 9 years old, they told me I was weak.

But, when I was 10,
they showed me I could be intelligent.
Gave me the taste of an A+
and the rush of that 100%.
Instilled an insatiable curiosity,
only satisfied by answers and worksheets.
Until I knew knowledge,
I did not know I was starving.
At 10, I called myself savvy.

​And at 11,
they called me scandalous.
Told me that shoulders grabbed eyes
like bait hooked fish,
and math was made difficult
by above-the-knee dresses.
They taught me about spaghetti straps instead of times tables,
lectured me until skirts gave way to sweatpants and camis to cardigans.
At 11 years old, they reduced me down to a distraction.

             —After Ada Limón

Freshman year gym class
I walked with Sophia

along the path
looping around the tennis courts.

I was wearing that blue tie-dyed t-shirt,
and maybe the shoes were blue too.

Suddenly, a group of boys
crossed our path. One of them said

Sophia had some tennis balls,
but I didn’t

realize he was talking
about our breasts
​
for perhaps a day, or a week,
but likely a month.

Doesn’t wish to be commodified, or
have his hair touched (thank you,)

The property has no affiliation with:

terf-lite, classics-upholding, gatekeeping,
one in a million diversity-hire that needs

to be shushed--

(This author is: A fairytale. In a fairytale world.
It is one he created to even have privilege
To breathe--)

​
Welcome everyone, tonight's play will follow
the standard three-act structure:

My body is stiff
                   unmoving
                   tired
as I pull myself out of one mold
and into another.
Who do I need to be today?
Am I
                   aspiring artist
                   funny friend
                   overachieving student
                   closeted daughter
am I
                   emotional
                   invisible
                   boring
                   plain
                   ​too much
Can you see me?
Who looks back when I look in the mirror?