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The Imperfect Present

aesthegirlcoreic by Lena O. (Canada, 18)

10/31/2023

 
​it is amazing. the variants there
are of girlhood - cracked spectacles leak
glitter, plastic, gel, the virus spreads
with every definition. we are a mixture
of brain and heaving lung - one keeps, one kills the
other. priests say - "are loving and consuming
not the same?" do not swear at my body (my brain,
my blood). you should not name it
(not priest and not another woman).
we must not make more names than there are people
we must not pick a person for a name

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How You Find Love by Tedecia Bromfield (Jamaica, 25)

10/31/2023

 
Catch the sweet river water
That moistens chapped lips,
And honeyed tears that overflow
Hold yourself
Your love holds worlds together
Did you know?
It’s okay sweet, sweet baby
Wash the sins from your fingertips
Release the staleness of emotions
Heavier than the unforgiving sun
Walk into our mothers acquitted tongues
This is how you’ll come to yourself

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untitled (fire stained skin...) by Erin Nuttle (Michigan, 16)

10/31/2023

 
after kaveh akbar


​fire stained skin.
sinners at dawn. we’re.
failing at both.
manhood and.
womanhood.
we clutch moons.
in our plucked hands.
to reveal the secrets of.
femme.
to wash our fire stained.
skin. with prayers and
obituaries. for
our fallen sisters.
the sun reminds us.
our love is dangerous.
our love is designed.
to be roadkill.
the sun reminds us.
our mothers.
weep for their sons.
we pray. in the moonlight.
we pray.
in secret. Is that the only way?
to be beautiful?

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fragility & other childish things by Asea (Philippines, 15)

10/28/2023

 
i was born to feel. i was born in
vulnerability and heartache. i was born
to know grief in my bones.

i was told to perform. i was told that
my pain made me unlovable. well,
who would want me if my sadness was
displayed, plastered on my face, through
salt and acid, for everyone to see? it’s
macabre, the sight of a lady crying.

             silly child, if the shoe doesn’t fit, do you not know to carve your skin till it does?
             it’s always your fault,
                          has no one already taught you that?

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Last Names by Madison Cossaboom (Delaware, 17)

10/28/2023

1 Comment

 
​Long nights, I spend dreaming of a river
Winding between wooded plains and forgotten prairies
Softly breaking to caress sunkissed grass
Walls which shelter the aspiring ants
I dream of the tulip fields claimed by the sun
Serving as paint on the planet’s canvas
A landscape soon to be perpetual

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1 Comment

Quiet hope by Bella Fawzi (Netherlands, 17)

10/28/2023

 
​Call me back
when the lotus flowers ache
start rotting and
fall apart piece by piece
give me a ring and
ask me to sing and
I’ll do it like before
don’t think I love you
anymore
but i’ll sing you to sleep
once more for sure.
I hate dandelions now;
wishes are too big
too sacred
to let a passing thing keep

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A repository, and A wave by Tabassum Hasnat (Bangladesh, 21)

10/28/2023

 
In a fit of rage you call my name
I carry my calm to you and as
you indulge in its crumbs

I dine on the melees
of your malevolence

for I am but a repository
of the spoils left from your wrath
​
you are but a wave accustomed
to crashing onto souls walking
along the safe lines of the shore,
leaving their peace plundered.

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The Reservoir by Paris Mather (Ohio, 21)

10/28/2023

 
Was mad,
Shying,
And scattering.
I knew waiting for me
Was a firm seat.

My heart was packed by
Blocking and waiting.
Between Death,
My coincidence of delay of traffic stood,
Doubtless and unknown.

​I liked him.
He long understood me and
We became the best of friends.
He had killed the average representative
Of travelers and the wanderers of romance.

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Grief by Miriam Colleran (Ireland, 52)

10/28/2023

 
​​She was anticipating it - grief,
She remembered the last time,
the searing suffering,
and expected the same, again;
inside she knew
that their time together was almost done.
But no, no,
She was wrong, very wrong,
grief changes and is new every time;
it was different,
but still distressing,
the sadness was more heartrending, more harrowing,
Now    ….     this time     ….     ​she grieved them both.

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Today I feel like a Man by Paris Mather (Ohio, 21)

10/28/2023

 
​Today I feel like a Man.
My drowsiness marionettes
my fingers to rustle imaginary stubble
as weariness collects under my eyes,
matching the half-melted snow
that gathers where the street slumps.
I weave around
with my worn leather boots,
brown with fibers amiss,
and my posture resembling that of a
writer or lawyer or professor or psychologist
or editor or traveler,
or anyone who is bent from the efforts
of collecting voices around them and passing
them off as his own, (though proud that he
was the one to notice them and put them together in the first place)
walking back toward his abode where some lady
may or may not be waiting.

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