Category: Issue #4
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A counterculture narrative on adoption.
There’s only so many times I can listen to that “Where are you from?” question until something has to give. I think about the space, the city, and the country where I live now, and the places in my past. I know these things. In my story, they’re easy parts. What’s more difficult are the…
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I am a narcissist.
Every counselor I’ve ever talked to has told me that I’m very humble. Every teacher I’ve ever had knows me as quiet and unassuming. Many of my peers would describe me as mysterious and out-of-the-spotlight. I don’t really try to be. I don’t intend to act humble, I just say what I believe. I don’t…
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Foreign Appetite – A Short Story
The instance I awoke from surgery I wailed loudly from the inscrutable pain at the doctors who—after inspection—said nothing was physically wrong with me. But I knew from that intense hunger in my chest that something was off—that a new heart was not the only thing put inside me. I couldn’t sleep for almost the…
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Cultural Impermanence
I was an avid reader and started at the age of 2. At first, my books consisted of illustrations of cartoon people and animals but soon evolved into words imprinted on a tiny book. Despite the differences between the two, they all shared a similar trait: being engraved in Chinese. My first language growing up…
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blue butterfly.
in the midst of summer, i lay where the mossy grass paints my shoes green, and the warm winds breeze through my silhouette, lays the most riveting creature i’ve ever seen. that day on july 16. your wings grace my cheek so lovingly, the touch so homely, as you brush my hair back and wipe…
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a beautiful plea
This beautiful plea knows the bounds of this page. The blood that you gave me that flows Through my suffocated skin, Is like waterfalls through a poisoned pool. Black and blue and dead all over. I am writing and painting pictures and poems for you to see. Come and take a walk through my pathetic…
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The Autumnal Equinox
Dear September 24, 2022, I hope you’re getting this in time. This letter has been long overdue. Even in the midst of summer, I couldn’t stop thinking of you. Just a month ago, sunscreen slathered and bug bitten, I pretended to indulge in freedom—in fantasy. I soaked in lake water until it reached my bloodstream,…
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Autumn Rain
In my room I wait, hopeful eyes turned up to a hopeless abyss. I sit at my window, as silent and still as the glass pane through which I gaze. My hands, busy on my lap, play a silly little game of twisting and pulling—a game that shall never be won or lost, so long…