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Poetry Burns Like Hunger

Feb 17
9 min

Poetry Burns Like Hunger

The House on Denison Road has stood stock-still since 1955, bearing its rooms and opening its windows to dozens of residents. Each person left the house within a year; the sublime aura of the suburbs infected their heads, woozying their eyes to see nothing but shrubbery and shining neighborly smiles. Each person moved to the bright little suburb, charmed by the white slates of the House on Denison Road, its deep navy shutters and intricate maze of hedges luring the fresh-eyed

Twofold

Dec 28, 2020
2 min

Twofold

It is being a seed sown on one soil but cultivated in another, the stem bridging the distance between the budding flowers and the anchored roots. It is the safe space over the kitchen table, The tumble of languages in the tangle of our conversations, The stories of sacrifice and blazing ambitions entwined into our dreams every night. It is the English words that trip off our tongues now, but it was our native language nestled into our young minds first. It is being the weak l

10 Things I Used to Hate About You

Nov 23, 2020
2 min

10 Things I Used to Hate About You

#1: The skies here are the wrong color, I’m in the middle of starting over. #2: It’s no Sunshine State here, and the teachers call me by the wrong name, impatiently, instead of honey, lovebug, in sweet iced-tea voices. #3: The roads here are too narrow, Mom says. She wears makeup to cope. #4: I ride the school bus here, like I’d always wanted, and the senior behind me tells me that everyone gets too tired to talk when it’s this dark. #5: The church here is cold, and my sister

POETRY: Error 404

Oct 19, 2020
2 min

POETRY: Error 404

One day, When we awake with a jolt and find that we have never really seen in the stretch of our existence, we ponder. Is this a mistake, an error? A glitch in the system that was so carefully crafted around us? When we open our eyes, it is still blurry. We frantically scrub at ash and soot that pour from the skies with bristly wooden scrub brushes we find tossed into our laps. But the screens are not clear yet; they will not be for a period of time. We can try to wipe them c

STUDENT RESOURCE: The Modern Teen’s Guide to Reading Poetry

Oct 11, 2020
6 min

STUDENT RESOURCE: The Modern Teen’s Guide to Reading Poetry

Jumping head first into the world of poetry can be a daunting task, but also a rewarding one. For many teenagers, the poetry that they are exposed to seems archaic and off putting, so they are less likely to consider reading poetry on their own. While there is a place for Shakespeare, Poe, and Whitman, the bygone poems we read in school often feel alienating, and leaving out poets whose work would captivate a teenager. Getting into poetry that goes beyond iambic pentameter an

I Have Been Wondering

The Incandescent

Sep 7, 2020
2 min

I Have Been Wondering

I have been wondering How this has happened to me I am just a placeholder Nothing without its burden Yet overlooked even when carrying The weight of the world On my mind I have been wondering How I came to be How was I lost in this endless sea Of endless misery So many things I should remember A shopping list of headaches Cold and unfamiliar But God shows no mercy At least not to people like me I have been wondering Questions swirling around my head Bumping around, surfacing

I am NOT

The Incandescent

Aug 31, 2020
2 min

I am NOT

after Stray Kids If all the clay is shaped the same, how can I be considered different? I am not. This shape, it deceives me; they attempt to mould me into perfection. I am not. Get out, this is my district. Don’t talk to me unless you have an answer To my question. As of now, the only answer I have is that I am not. It’s a case with no evidence that no one asked me to solve; this reflection is blank. Confusion is encompassing; who is this person in the mirror? I am not. Awak

Horror

The Incandescent

Aug 31, 2020
1 min

Horror

the scream of the patterned azure as its skin is defiled by the excess of man’s most impressive monster. and the olive jade skeletons that mourn their littered brothers and sisters. siblings that become one with the mother. their bodies torn from their feet to satisfy man’s thirst for art, speech, beauty. the scurrying creatures watch as their havens are destroyed and wonder how they will continue to live on now. how they will endure with a constant yearning and no place to c

I am Korean-American

The Incandescent

Aug 26, 2020
2 min

I am Korean-American

A couple summers ago, a bunch of friends came over to cheer on Korea for the World Cup. My couch was a sea of red shirts. The energy was like sparkling water spilling out of a cup. I don’t have much interest in sports but the spirit they generate is like the song of a siren drawing you in. I heard once, that in Korean, during World Cup days, you can hear cheers from apartments over. No one cares because they, themselves are too busy cheering. I’ve never experienced it but I i

alternate names for quarantine

Aug 24, 2020
1 min

alternate names for quarantine

after Danez Smith & Franny Choi one scooter’s length away roof rain wild boxes left to garage fumes chorus of city-street sika deer child until washed lighter half-mast gold-throated sailors in the west cotton moons crack lamppost backs plexiglas mouths sun-soaked migrant washed ashore Target melting under bomb-black sky trail of candied daughters ghosts, now #poetry #quarantine

“The Déjà Vu of Love”

Aug 19, 2020
2 min

“The Déjà Vu of Love”

But it was the speckled stars drawn behind them that caught My hands onto the glossy pages where the white ink was set. I would always look up to try to find one twinkling spot. But to a human eye, the city outshines the celestial sky. I can catch the stars tonight. Amongst them all, winks a steady light, Shining brighter than the rest of the sky. I close my eyes, and years ago I saw a steady light that shone brighter than the rest of the sky. It hung, waiting on the north si

Unfurl

Aug 17, 2020
1 min

Unfurl

Making zongzi is a simple art. No more than sticky rice steeped in soy sauce, bloated with pork fats and onion. Embellished with leaves of the lucky bamboo. He says it keeps the body holy and pure. Constricted, can’t unfurl. In our language, 自己isn’t hard to write or to pronounce. You were wrapping zongzi when Father read you a legend about a girl and the moon. Fate can't help but long for the ink-stained wings of breathless storms, the spiraling jade of thunderbolts. You drea

Shadows

Aug 3, 2020
1 min

Shadows

Walking to my car from the grocery store I stepped over a stranger’s shadow, looked at where its eyes should have been and felt a familiar tug a passing greeting from a friend a nod in the hallway, maybe a muttered “how are you” strangely familiar for the cast shape of a body that wasn’t even mine -- that’s the thing with shadows, though they are as much ours as they are not: funhouse mirror puddles of gray behind us beside us before us unrecognizable even to their source (Ha

Jul 13, 2020
1 min

the pain you inflicted

How does it feel to be punished for just existing, To be ripped apart and used as a canvas for those who leave their marks when they choose? I have open wounds that never sealed, Layers of jagged scars that built sloping towers, Muscle and meat eroded from the exposure to the slashing fleets of hail and suffocating gusts of tornado winds that drown my cries. My purity was stripped and stolen over a decade ago, yet the details are still so clearly etched into my mind like the

what do you want to be when you grow up?

Jul 8, 2020
1 min

what do you want to be when you grow up?

i wonder what it’s like to be an astronaut to drift in the recesses of space unspoken and soundless and alone. i wonder what it’s like to be weightless only because gravity is a fleeting thing and not because my mind has unraveled and disconnected from my body. i wonder what it’s like to be tethered to be anchored to the side of a spaceship so that when my strength fails me i do not simply float away. i wonder what it’s like to breathe recycled air and know exactly when the o

"Atlas"

Jul 6, 2020
2 min

"Atlas"

I built castles for love and furnished them into prisons, Forging tense responsibility out of tender notions, And to seal the leaking cracks on the ceilings, I wrapped my arms from wing to wing. Over the arches stretching from side to sigh, The towers of brick expectations stack too high. My paper-thin elbows and illusions Cannot hold To even be my own scaffold. When a single heart is heavy in suspension, How can I build the foundations And rise to the rafters, becoming the e

Gaia's Pride

Jul 1, 2020
1 min

Gaia's Pride

Elegant lady in azure, dancing in the dark, An ancient pirouette, as old as The Big Bang’s quark. With a pearly gem adorning her side, She loops and spins with a confident pride. A pride that rests in the motherhood of life, Of bluejay songs more melodious than a fife. Of haunting sounds of the humpback whale, Singing the glories of Gaia’s tale. Rapturous, her tears did the oceans create, From their waters did spring the guardians of her fate. Guardians, beautiful and unique,

Reality

Jun 24, 2020
1 min

Reality

Tempestuous and piercing thoughts stab into your focus, Penetrating And leaving you dazed. Racing thoughts echo in hollow channels, Each challenging the others To see who can crash first. Close your mind. Gather your sanity. Block the searing pain that threatens to take control. Like a candle Bringing light from the shadows, Tranquility welcomes you. A hush falls over your ears, Calming the beasts that reside in your head. The flame swells into a haven of security and warmth.

love on my mother's tongue, 1983

Jun 15, 2020
1 min

love on my mother's tongue, 1983

māmā will tell me about her sweet potatoes, & laugh. she’ll tell me about how they’d chew the fields to the bone, matchstick- woven feet tripping wilder fires across the wood. she’ll tell me about how they scooped up the earth, made a home in its belly, left the crops to sleep beneath heaps of hot ash, to eat later & māmā will wring those three syllables until they are dry, let the pulp sink right back into her throat, collect them like empty air in a crate, feel their heavin

Shanghai

Jun 8, 2020
1 min

Shanghai

You miss it, the only city you’ve ever known. Oriental Tower like redwood forest, limbs crackling with unspoken words. Try again to enter the domain of the gods. Any moment now. You can play Cordelia, the haloed daughter giving up her kingdom for the price of salt. Salt like glitter across the Huangpu, like rubies studded on the banks. Only fool’s gold. Call you the fool, the one in every good Shakespeare play. In and out and back again in this restless waltz. Light darting a

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