Tag Archives: essay

Poetry

Teen Angst – Iman Messado

I think I’d rather call it cognitive dissonance.

But the only thing about that practice

is that it’s wrong because it’s not fragments of my mind that aren’t aligning.

If I’m my mind then nothing is really wrong at all,

except that my body is my temple and

i’ve been forced to inhabit it.

 

But if my body is my temple,

who am I being made to worship?

If it’s my mind, then I’m even more upset

because that’s cognitive dissonance without wiggle room.

Tell me, who’s visiting the temple?

I’m somehow both my mind and my body and whatever is in between or whatever is higher than all of that and maybe i’m on some other dimension or plane of existence or state of being and–

 

The problem is that all of that doesn’t help right now.

What are metaphysical musings when

hormones or whatever are leaving you depressed beyond common conciliation?

I’ve got a decided mental dogma.

I know what I want and I know how to act and I know how to think,

but all of that doesn’t seem to matter,

in the face of all of this

(bland/nothing/self-pitying/why does everything matter so much)-ness

 

I kind of hate being a teenager because

it’s not as if anything is coming out of these

silly little down-in-the-dumps-horrible-miserable episodes.

 

If I’m still wondering if my body is my temple at 34,

I’ll be taking my morning coffee with a teaspoon of bullshit.

(metaphorically though).

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Poetry, Prosetry

Generation Y+Z= Love – Ugonma Ubani-Ebere

 

But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is social media, and Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is the sun
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious Myspace
Who is already sick and pale with grief.
That thou her maid art more fair than she.
Love they said. It will make the world go around they said.
In a world where chivalry is replaced by thirst.
A virgin now wears a Scarlett Letter with a V, because she is a rarity in society
Sex is as casual as a conversation.
Body counts are the new public relations.
A relationship status means more than “I love you”
While some are content with just being a side chick or boo.
We argue through 140 characters instead of actually talking it out.
And words can only be expressed through texts instead of our mouths
Flirting has now evolved into multiple likes on Instagram.
Intimacy is shown through FaceTime.
It is now easier to find a hot date on Tinder in the palm of your hand.
Self pleasure comes from a selfie as we kiss ourselves through lenses.
Waves of materialistic pleasure wash away our expenses.
No longer do we value relationships, but put our hopes in “situationships.”
Social media is becoming a sanctuary, where we worship celebrities as Zeus and Aphrodites.
Morals come from Worldstar, as we wish upon it to make us famous.
We are walkers, walking dead in barren land of lost authenticity and insincere affection.
Social media has become our generation’s predilection.
We have fallen truly, madly, and deeply in love with our soul mates.
If you listen closely, you can hear the soul chant:
Oh Social media, Oh Social media! wherefore art thou Social media
Deny thy maker, and refuse thy name;
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Human.
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Poetry, Prosetry

Our Now – Harika Kottakoka

Now, we must stand!
     stake our lives
for equivocal things
that our hearts certainly
   Revere.
But our gazes steady,
our triumph ordained in diamond
     even the finest
edges of terror
         Will shatter.
Now, we must choose!
        between eternities
embalmed with reticence
or seconds of compassion,
a sparkle of
          Fulfillment.
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Poetry, Prose

I Pick Me – Brooke Safferman

 

I longed for the days we used to have

Back when we were free from our shadows

And the things that existed beneath the surface

But quite subtly but yet so boldly all at once, you had

Changed.

 

You were always my favorite escape

Until I knew all there was to know about you

Or so I thought.

Or so I thought.

 

You imprisoned me, kept me in a cage with steel bars built of your emotions

Some metallic alloy composed of your cruelty and my acceptance of something Primitive and unforgiving

Your rules were Creed and Scripture and Rhythm

Every word you spoke dictated the very substance of my life,

All actions traced back to you.

 

But could you blame me, really?

Spellbound by the authoritative way your lips moved across my own

I lost myself somewhere

In between the “I love you”’s and the “You’re the best”’s

I knew who you really were:

A ruler and a tyrannical dictator

Control was your elixir, Power, your mighty Pandora’s Box

 

As much as I crave you, sublime in all your mercilessness,

There is something I must tell you:

I Pick Me.

And I must walk away.

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Poetry

Menen – Ian Dean

As far as I can see I admire you,

And so you have inadvertently lead me into folly.

But how could you, that has said so little,

Lead so passionately without even speaking?

 

As misunderstood as the worth of diamond

The thought of speech of the beauty not siren.

 

Such a note that is yet unsung;

I wish to hear your native tongue

Which I have been told is nothing more than

What can be found, and has been, here

 

Regardless of how shallow informant’s depth

Your vibrant face is full of breath

As brown as coffee of your country

I found you new as herder Kaldi

 

And often, I know, I’ll meet your face

A habesha girl with hair of grace,

That shelters you from eyes of envy,

Rests as soft as your skins consistency

 

As passionate as my perceived bestiality,

I have yet to know of your personality.

 

Past waves of tef that equal nigh

The count of stars found in your eyes

Had cursed men and sent to die!

They look to much in glaring skies.

 

Will you take me as am?

Consider despite a foreign man,

Or maybe was it yet my plan

That led me here by my hand?

Could you ever gave the damn,

To hush the world and take my hand?

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Poetry, Prosetry

The One Who Knew Me Best, The First One I’d Never Lose – Brooke Safferman

My dreams are haunted by

The loss of you, The One Who Knew Me Best.

 

Golden hair thicker than the forest

That we took a walk in that first time

You kissed me

And I vowed you would be

The First One I’d Never Lose.

 

Here I am, a year later and still scratching

My first two initials with that of your last name

Onto my notebooks like some 10-year-old in puppy love

Onto my desk chair like a punk who sits in the back of the classroom

Into my heart with each and every memory

 

Of the way your face lit up when you bought me tiny sunflowers,

Of the earnest sound of your laugh when I told old jokes

that weren’t even funny,

Of your whispering breath when you told me how I was

The Girl You Had Always Wanted To Find.

 

Time is a funny thing I’ll never understand;

The older it grows, so does your soul.

 

But mark my words:

No matter how many days and

Hours and

Minutes and

Seconds tick on by

On the retro cat clock with the scanning eyes

(Back-and-forth, back-and-forth)

That you had given to me as our last anniversary present,

Well,

Just know that there will never be another you.

 

You and me, we were burgled that night.

A hit-and-run,

A drunk driver and his equally drunken friends,

Robbers.

They stole your life,

And they stole you away from me.

 

So rest in peace,

The One Who Knew Me Best,

The First One I’d Never Lose.

I will Love you always.


-The Girl You Had Always Wanted to Find

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Poetry

The Way I Want to Be Remembered – Iman Messado

All I’ve ever wanted to be was
the warmth of my favorite plush animal.
I’ve never said a word about
the smell of a new pair of shoes.
I want to be
the sunlight caught in my niece’s eyelashes,
the ink on a college acceptance letter,
the wrapper of your last tampon.
Who ever said I thought about
the tag of a new cardigan?
If you talk to me about the
way that my grandmother’s curtains
do the jitterbug when the summer breeze arrives;
about the hot peach tea that burned by 11 year old tongue,
then we might be on the same page.
But don’t you dare mention the lingering scent
of some $90 perfume on my wrist.

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Poetry, Prosetry

Chance – Harika Kottakota

An old, innate love replaced me–
Scissored the silver nylon
Connecting our shoulders like
Twigs scattered on forest floors
Robbed of light, of fortitude
How venerable this bondage
Seemed within the storm’s eye
How easily, how wholesomely it
Deceived my butterfly thoughts
So naturally, you faded from
Dreams that once consoled me
Yet hubris stops intervention
I simply begin walking again
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Poetry

Four Years – Kaavya Raman

Four years,

First two, emotional roller coaster,

Third, a discovery period,

Fourth to come.

Four years,

Friendship struggles,

Loss of friends,

Gain of friends,

Friends who stick around.

Four years,

Creativity versus practicality,

Practicality is the norm,

But creativity prevails.

Four years,

Proud of myself,

10 year old me would be ecstatic,

18 year old me is yet to come.

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Poetry

The Exception to the Rule – Brooke Safferman

The leaves tickle my bare feet
Dew drops beaming proudly in the coral-lit world
Peachy skies raining euphoria upon our giggling bodies
6am; we’re the only people who exist.

And your lips tickle my elbows
Nothing is as sweet as the whispered “I love you”s
Or the way I lose track of what is my hair and
what is the grass.

The moisture of the ground beneath my back trickles
Through the cotton fibers of my starchy eyelet dress
White is the color of purity, but more importantly,
that of your soul.

With your arms around me
I know that we will be
The Couple That Lasts.

And we will be
The Sweethearts
The When-Are-They-Gonna-Get-Married-Already
The Exception To The Rule.

I watch the birds fly by up above us
And I imagine we are one of them
We are too young to be in this deep,
But we couldn’t care, even if we desired to.

“We already are one,”
you say and you smile.
I lace my hand into your own.
The Exception To The Rule.

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