Free Verse Angela Xiao
I dream of
Giant butterflies
Radioactive cotton candy
Black lips
I dream of
Rainbow skin
Endless roads
Flash floods
But most of all
I dream of
The radiant you
The beautiful you
The mesmerizing you
Cancer Karman Schad My family has not lived long Especially the women Struck down in their 50’s and 60’s Dragged down by the tumours growing inside them.
I never met my grandmothers One lost her liver One lost her kidneys Both lost their lives.
Last year, I lost my aunt Vesna. This year my aunt Lili was diagnosed Cancer of the brain She has had surgery over and over
The tumour keeps coming back
She has a little boy And a little girl They’re 10 and 9 And they may watch their mother die.
My cousin Megan is 4 months older She watched her mother die
Over 7 years of chemo and suffering It nearly killed her too.
I have had much of my family struck down By the intruding grasp of Cancer I worry for my mother, for my sister, for me
Cancer could reach into us with its wily grasp Pulling the life from us
I hope it won’t,
But you never know.
The White Woman Emily Larman
The creases upon her cheeks were like the dusty cracks
etched upon my floors.
A somber tear caught in the crevice, of a sifted wrinkle
Her sable hair a shade too dark
for the sallow of her skin.
But, a smile that could win wars and give hope
to those who had nothing left.
A glowing promise in a bloodless hue.
Waxen with self-doubt,
she carried herself with an air of skepticism.
An almost sentient unbelief.
The white woman walked in an emotionless stupor
and laughed with a knowing unconcern.
A sound so masterfully outlandish,
one could not help but stop and delight in its marvels.
Surrounded by a wall of rampant poison hemlock,
entwined in a vermillion curse,
the white woman wondered.
Wondered why they were staring.
Wondered why they were laughing.
But wonderment did not appeal to adoration.
It was simply an undying devotion
to the realm in which one subsists.
The white woman worked,
worked to forget.
Worked to forget as a child who does not remember For what point did it serve
to dwell upon past transgressions
instead of divulging oneself into the capacity of the present?
Like a broken limb that never heals.
Truth lies beyond.
Beyond the vestiges of the past and the convictions of the future.
The white woman wallowed,
for a world without unhanding was no world at all.
Beauty Twisted Sonnet by Selina Mao
Your song is sweeter than a nightingale’s,
Your dance in rhythm with a quick strong heart,
Like that of a hummingbird on my sails,
To a traveler like me, you are my art.
I’ll write you a letter and sign my love,
Because no one sings as perfect as you,
To the moon and sun or my favorite dove,
No voice so beautifully cracked and blue.
Like cuts and kisses my perfect songbird,
Only someone like you can heal my scars,
People like us who can never be heard,
Trapped and twisted by these monsters and bars.
To them you cannot sing and I—a ghost,
But together we are the perfect host.