Untitled

I find it hardest to write 
When I’m happy 
When my emotions are stable
Chemically balancing 
Stimuli vanishing 
Feeling much less like therapy 
And more of a challenge
One comprehensive mountain climb 
Melancholy is a tonic 
That only the sad comfortably stomach 
Makes the jolly man vomit 
Maybe it has to be this way 
Maybe I must 
Absorb myself 
In it’s state
Maybe by ruminating 
Too hard 
The happy would erase 
I fear to dissect it 
Lest it turns to dust 
And I adore it too late 
There’s a transparency 
In those windows 
Riddled with mildew 
That the happy glass
Doesn’t have
It I struggle to see through 
I wish to able to to find 
Inspiration 
In sunshine 
In rainbows
In faerie gardens 
In flowers that sit in pretty rows 
But I only know how to really
Talk 
Speak 
Voice 
Debate 
Pain
And how it freezes you 
How the downs in life 
Reduce you
Like a jeu 
But produce the best in you 
Too
I want to swing from rafters with glee
And write about these things 
Unapologetically
But the human in me 
Sees happy as 
Defeat 
As far too neat 
Not abstract enough 
Not deep 
When I’m happy
My grasp on language 
Simply retreats 
Maybe I’m stuck believing 
Torment is living 
And contentment is giving in
And that’s why these happy states 
I don’t stay in 
I can’t hold my happy too tight
Or like a butterfly it just might 
Fly far far away
Out of my sight 
So I keep worry to the side of me
And despair in my pocket 
So that when I’ve lost it
That joy
That harmony 
When from it I’ve been accosted 
I can slot right back in 
Back into the gloomy
Semantic glory 
I know best 
The safest kind of nest 
And lay my writers block
To rest

by Forest

If/Make It With You

i replay the record till it scratches and skips, 
i keep repeating the same old verses even when
they start to stink; it is good enough that the smell
is there to remind me of you, and every inch of
your stupidity that once endeared you to me, 
somehow i do not have it anymore and i can 
only find it in shallow lyrics where i pretend there
is a better story than this, some sort of alternative, but
i just know i would have made all the same mistakes 
only to swear by my innocence—if i bleed white
then so be it, it is proof only to me and no one else; 
if i bleed red, then let yourself be marooned by me, 
when i know i could launch more than a thousand ships. 

track 1: accidentally in love - counting crows
i secretly grew tired of this song, and now i resent it 
even more, even more now that it only reminds me of 
you—it uses the word “love” every other verse and no 
longer do i want to associate you with that grotesque 
word, no longer do i want to know what you do or who
you’re with, but freedom is cruel now that i have it, 
and so were you when i had you, i do not want for any
more in this world, i take everything i own for granted. 

track 2: kiss me - sixpence none the richer
it is better, a source of relief even, that this is one track
that does not bring back the thought of you, i think of
autumns i have never visited, and leaves that do not fall, 
i am alone and none the lonelier, but i have friends that
i dial up for days and nights and answer to every call; 
there is too much love that once i had for you, that now
is just all up for fifty per cent off, i let your love go; it 
wasn’t my call to make but i do not ask for any payback.

by Leya Kuan

The Fall of 2024

Today I tried to write again, but my mind is empty and 
So are my hands; I have spent them all away, on 
Blouses just to prove that I lost a couple of pounds,
And bits of some things to show myself that I have more
Than a couple of pounds—my mind is far, far away, and
Yet—but—so—and—half of me has been here to bear
Witness, to bare what is left of me before it all chips 
Away, a way to remember the words I have used only to
Pour the ink all over the curves and blur it all back 
Together, but at least this is what remains, and what is 
Left of me, the last bit of common sense that I will 
Never use, from the beginning to the present end. 

I am still young, I tell myself, and there is still so much 
Time left in the world, all of it, time enough for only
you and I, in the lateness of the morning and the early
Beginnings at the end of the year, but every candidate For my affections brings this old feeling that only you
Bore, by land or by sea, whatever it is, there is still 
Distance by heart or by proximity, so I keep ringing up 
The couriers and reminding them of my free shipping, 
I keep calling you up so you know that I am living, who
Cares to live if it is not for your love? Spill that apathy 
From my lips to your faithless country, spit that venom
From your faith to my fate, let it go every time we touch. 

Today I remind myself that I am a writer so I must write 
But I have given all my words away to the garden of 
False fairies and godless gnomes, I claim it’s charity but
I truly only need a facade of generosity for my vanity, 
I let myself believe that I have kindness in my heart, so
I may put myself to sleep in the belief of my purity, 
You have robbed me of my sentences to string you 
Along, now there are no more words to fill up a meaning
And there are no more syllables to make up your song, 
You have judged to sentence me to a silent misery, 
If there is some regret in you, may it chain you to every 
Inch of the servitude that I once volunteered for you. 

I carry with me my words and our noises, I recite it with
A couple thousands steps along the way to put me in 
God’s way and to my own ease—if physicality is your
Intimacy then you must be as pure as the Madonna, if 
Words are my intimacy then I should be as filthy as any
Other smut on a whore, but who are you to fall to your 
Feet and declare yourself my friend? And who is he to 
Turn on his feet and become a heartless foe? Call it 
What you want—whatever lies you may tell yourself 
And wherever your heart belongs, whoever you are 
Holding me now in your hand, I know a thousand 
Poems cannot save me anymore, more than ever before. 

by Leya Kuan

You are Just a Friend

Every lie you tell me belongs in Heaven 
and every shred of truth can go right down to the depths of Hell—pour it out of half my soul and fill up your cup
Just because you are just, just because we only are just, 
You make me nineteen in the same way you are, you 
Bring me back to the childhood I lost when I was fifteen, 
Stop the time and stop that man! Stop it all at the line, 
Can’t we just be alone with no other entity to prey upon 
Us? Can’t we be left alone on our own without a prayer?

Maybe I will never be her, I cannot love you because 
Someone else got to get to you first, but there is this
One beating in my heart that I cannot put to a feeling, 
But how nice that she got to hold you in her arms and 
Declare that skin hers to feel to a fault, I get to hold you
Too but without a word to hold me accountable, even if
I am content with this worthless warmth, Winehouse has
To warn me some waiting urgency, that my heart will 
Break for you every time, just because I am/was not her.

And as much as I dream and delude myself into 
Believing I am some film star with a camera trailing my
My lines and my moves, you will remember that certain
Part of me that no one else will bother with, no one no 
More, the more I feel, the more I would like to forget, 
I write this in my underwear, I do not let you look
Under where my truth leads to, there is nothing more 
Than what meets the naked eye, I am so predictable that
Everybody already knows, everybody talks as if they do. 

Whatever you want to call me, love, or Leya, 
Let me fall in love alone and mend the heart you did not get to break, it is not your fault that my days are filled with you, even worse when my days have no hint of you, 
Have you the courage equal to my desire? I clap with
One hand tied behind my back, fingers crossed, in 
Anticipation or to relieve me of any red herring you laid
Out for me to trip all over, I could swear that there was 
Someone for me to love, another Troy for me to destroy. 

by Leya Kuan

Untitled

i. An ex-lover told me that I chew people up and spit them out after I am finished with them. They are left half-consumed, the enzymes from my saliva still working at their gnawed flesh. I cannot deny the way I used to toy around with hearts like a curious kitten, pawing back and forth at them until they served no use to me.
I did not know what love was then.
Maybe I still don’t.
ii. Jackson C. Frank’s warbling through the tin-toned speakers reminds me that even if I caught a boat back to England, maybe even to Spain, that the blues would catch up with me either way. And not the type of blue that washes over you as a weighted blanket, a calm that envelops you in peaceful slumber. But rather a blue in which you drown, that eventually consumes you in all manners of sadness. A dark blue tidal wave crashes into you, shifting tides and carrying you in its undertow as you struggle to surface.
Please do not leave me.
Please do not make me succumb to this spectrum of blue.
iii. Scars are just the remnants of an open and bare flesh wound. One day, with time and effort, they will heal. Topical ointments do their damnedest to soothe the tissue, but it is not a cure-all healing salve. Just like heartbreak. Just like the way you left in the middle of the night, in silence. A ghost that haunts me even now; to this day. Perhaps I deserve this. Maybe it is our God-given right to have our souls remain shackled at the ankles for all our transgressions against one another.
You were right: I am but a lowly sinner, I can try to atone at your feet, exalting your name and paying you alms for all the petty jabs and stabs I managed to get in.
But so are you.
A toxic flower with petals unfurled, yearning to bloom, but no proper fertiliser and care, so you remain an unsprouted bulb, your roots so meek and feeble that the former shadow of yourself no longer exists.

by Christa Lei

Breaded Chicken Fillet with Egg Recipe

Trigger warnings: implied eating disorder, body shaming 

—

One: boneless chicken breast–spineless as you are. You laugh at the shadow of my reflection and yet you loathe yours; you simply cannot bear the sight of your own face dawning upon you. How does it feel to be wretchedly cruel, to the world and to yourself? Two: marinate Italian style. Ride the yacht you cannot afford and come home to your two-storey apartment paid with dirty money. Speak a language you cannot fathom. Call me when you need me, between the lines of “what does it all mean?”; let me ask you the same: how did you mean it all? Ridicule me, please, for not believing in a god that let your most beloved pass as though their existence were disposable. How can you live with it all, carrying the weight of your words like twisting a dull knife pierced into my wound? I make it all about me, don’t I? (I do, I do, I do) If I make this about you, will you forgive me for my untamed wit they all keep chasing me for? Three: eggs. The first crack in the shell is in the image of you crumbling beneath the lightest of pressure. The unfamiliar has always been daunting, hasn’t it? I wonder if you think of me now, between the lines of the poem you so desperately try to comprehend, yet it remains unbeknownst to you. Where has your brain gone amidst all the facade that is your beauty? Does it hide beneath all your grandeur? Four: garlic. Freshly minced to perfection. You do have an eye for it, don’t you? Every crevice of my existence is a sin for yours. All that I am was a pitiful cry for help; the girl meant to be at the back of the photograph—were their preening eyes enough to make a saint out of you? Serve on a sizzling plate. Hot and scorching and burning through your bones. It was debilitating to be known by you. The love I know of now at the touch of my fingertips is a far cry from the grasp of your cold hands. Let me devour what I deserve for it is all mine—none of the food in your mouth is ever worth digesting. I am sorry for choking you with a love you never deserved. I have learned my lesson to not swallow things I cannot fit in the roof of my mouth. All of it now is teeth and gums–a vision you would surely die for. Wallow in the limelight of my glory, would you? The pleasure is all mine.

by Alistair Gaunt

para mi vato

unas palabras para el vato que quiero
a piece of mexican love, from my chicana heart.

mi vato, eres lluvia
eres mi tristeza y mi crecimiento,
me haces sentir diferente cada día,
aunque mis emociones terminan siendo las mismas,
te quiero, podría declarar fácilmente bajo cualquier juramento – eres tu, vato, el que tiene mi corazón.

yo sé que tu sabes –
pero también sé que el recordatorio no hace daño. así que por última vez, mi vato, te quiero.

sinceramente,
mia.

by M.S. Blues

Shadow of a Star - Leslie Cheung

Shadow of a Star
Has your soul changed at all
Since we last spoke?
This month your voice sounds the loudest,
I remember your death more than your birthday,
I remember the tears I shed every April First,
Mourning each passing year as it
Comes and goes like the droplets on my cheeks,
I remember your shadow more than your presence,
Mourning a person I never even knew
A voice on the radio, a reflection of light,
In your grasp, in your eyes, the world is small.

Has your voice changed,
Would you sing for me, if Heaven, if Hell,
Could you remind me of
The way things used to be,
Even though I never knew it, never knew you,
But maybe—just maybe—
In your foregone reality, there’s still the possibility,
And I think we could’ve been great friends,
Or maybe you would’ve hated me,
Maybe it could’ve all passed us by,
Like nameless ships in the sea, nothing ever exchanged.

Love of my life, love of many lives,
Your voice remains in my mind still,
You are gone, but a mere shadow,
But maybe–just maybe–
We shall leave together, you and I,
When I am alone, your soul remains with me still,
A friend in the dark, a voice, a shadow nonetheless,
I have to remind myself that you are far away,
And I do not know you, I never did,
Yet there is today, a missed opportunity of time,
Until next time, farewell my concubine.

by Leya Kuan

The Apocalypse Never Ends For Some of Us

They call it assimilation
I call it annihilation.

The belief that you must shed yourself
to access the white man’s bliss
when they have labeled you the white man’s burden.

It cuts like a dull knife, rough, & jagged, and though there’s no blood
there’s still loss; not all violence is as clear as a fist to the face.

Many give in to survive, but whether it is self-inflicted or imposed
it creates a wound that will not close. Not on its own.

I’ve heard it said that not all skinfolk are kinfolk
and it’s sad how we confuse monoliths for unity
and shrug off our communities.

They teach us if we don’t speak right we don’t deserve to be heard
by who holds the power. They cannot exert it if they don’t have it.
And they cannot have it unless you give it, so instead they take it.

And it’s not a crime if it’s sanctioned by the state
when violence becomes law they don’t have to negotiate
because ‘the law is the law’.

This is why they don’t want us to think.

So, when they call for my assimilation
I will respond with this declaration.

-yo no me quito.

by Kamilah Mercedes Valentín Díaz

BLOOD SUCKING SUCCUBUS

You’ve stuffed my heart with empty words
Fatten and full, ripe for picking.
You’ve eaten the hearts of all those before me
But you won’t eat mine.
You’ve bitten, nibble, sucked,
No more than a mouthful
But you won’t fill your belly on me.

Find someone else to roll over,
Crack open their ribs and feast on their soul
Fill your desolate tank of broken hearts,
But you won't get mine.
Not over my dead body
Or my blood-fattened heart.

by Giesle Thompson

PENT UP

I wanna rip every fingernail out from beneath
my skin and stick metal screws in their place
I wanna throw punches through a wall
with the temperament of a white man
as I watch the nail slow jam their
way further into my finger, so I’ll
Have a reason.

All I need is a reason.

I wanna slice open my skin and pull back
Each layer of fat and a muscle, rummage
Through each tendon until I find the veins I’ve never seen
glow through the first layer of my skin
And pluck at my veins until my heart stops,
So I’ll have a reason.

All I need is a reason.

I wanna rip my jaw clean off my skull
then people will finally fucking listen to me.

by Giesle Thompson

MARIGOLDS

“You’re worth more than marigolds” but less than your shoes. Footprints left on the petals of my skin and the roots of my mind. Brittle and bruised, picked and used by you. Absent of any light or hope, I’ll wait for you. After all you put me through, I’ll wait for you. You planted yourself next to my self-worth and shouted “Pick me, pick me”. As soon as I took you back, you bruised me. A wilted flower in a pretty garden, no one will want me.

by Giesle Thompson

I. won’t. wither.

When my husband turned 70
They gave him a cane carved
with the body
of the red-winged sparrow.

I was left
with dried lily petals
melting into my tongue
as I peeled
hardened skins of summer
grapes beneath my fingernails.

When my husband turned 75
He brought a dancing girl home.
Her name sounded like
"Red-tipped carnation of the West Wind"
She plucked the seeds out of
spring strawberries
with slender twin fingers.

When my husband turned 80
He filled my bowels with
cheap white wine
and forced me to sleep with
alley-way cats.

I shared a feast
of rotting salmon and fishbone
with the blind black
tiger.

When my husband died
Our son carried me upon his back
to the Forest of One Thousand Whispers
He set me beneath the eldest oak
Kissed my spotted cheek and
bade me a tearless farewell.

Still,

My legs entwine
with the roots of the
great Oak, my fingers take the flight
of ten thousand cerulean
swallows
My lips form the
babbling brook of the east meadow
as my eyes turn to
seaglass
beneath unturned stones.

I. won't. wither.

by Katherine Zhao

The grief eater

When my grandfather died
I thought my world would end.

My grandmother, teary eyed
And shaky voiced, said to me

“You wished it was me
they laid in that casket, nuh true?”

I, eyes swollen and tongue heavy
from biting back words, let loose

“He should be here with me now
He should not be the one

Who wanders through these rooms
formless and untouchable.”

I did not wait to watch her tears fall;
I never thought she could cry.

She let a choke-sound escape
but she hit her chest twice

then swallowed loudly
and walked briskly away.

Years on years would fly by and
grief became a muted song

But my words to her would remain
gnawing at my tender heart.

When her memory began to fail,
I prayed my grief-spurned words

disappeared into the abyss like
the fact that the story she was

telling me was about the tenth
telling in half hour or less.

I spread “I love you” (and meant it) over our conversations, like a blanket.

I prayed she held those so close
That even in her now formless state

It warms her and reminds her
Of the little girl she loved so fiercely

that she attempted to take her grief
And hurt and swallow it whole.

by Karolyn K Smith

Escape From Your Heart

It’s hard for you to have your feelings for me escape from your heart… you felt your world change when I got on a different plane to depart… that’s when you started to fall apart… not to a different location, but we aren’t in the same place… you felt like another person would be able to take my place… we’re moving at a different pace… now you fell flat on your face and looking for saving grace.

The way that I made your heart feel with an abidance of emotion… you took for granted my time and devotion… but soon you’ll realize that I’m never coming back and you’ll wish to have a magi potion, to beg for my return… now those tears you cry actually burn.

You can’t escape the impact that I had on your life… now you feel alone because you lost the fight… now you feel the pain you caused, each and every slice… the weight that held me down, now I’m free to fly high like a kite… now you’re left with the bill to pay the price.

by NelliKong Psalms

Happiness Hurts

They say happiness feels like the warmth of daylight seeping in through your skin. Embracing your bones, and turning your heart into a mushy puddle of delight.

They say happiness is yellow.
Bubbly and bright.

They say happiness smells like cookies and cupcakes, and a plethora of flowers blooming between the butterflies in your stomach.

They say happiness is the laughter and smiles you share with your loved ones.

Lingering. Heartwarming.


If so…

Then I never knew this thing called happiness at all.


To me, happiness felt like a dream trapped in a distant screen.

Like the reflection of the moon upon the still water surface.

Visible.
Impossible to touch.


Like scraping a rock with your nails desperate to feel.

Close.
Impossible to accomplish.


You will only be left with blood and mangled fingers.

You will only be left with an aching heart and a hollow chest.


How wretched.


It was merely another thing outside my grasp.


Exist to tempt.
Impossible to get.

by MG

peppermint

melancholy lingers
like the itch that oppresses dry skin.

christmas spirit is the air,
so there’s no time for frowns and despair,
only smiles and jolly tones,
exhibits throughout the year that are rare.

yet, i can’t help but feel sad,
drown in the lingering melancholy.
for someone like me,
i guess it’s inevitable, really.

i suck on one of those peppermint mints,
while everyone else has fun,
the little aftertaste burns a cut that’s on my gum.
i whimper,
and the melancholy i feel deepens.

sadness is inevitable during the holidays, i told you.

by M.S. Blues

Blue tutus and pink cleats

A stranger stares back at me when I look at the mirror.
A scar I don’t recognize. Yet I know very well. A stranger looks back at me as I was up and stare at the mirror. Movements following mine, and somehow it’s different.
A frown in place of the smile I try to muster as I glance at them.
Their hair, cut shorter than what is deemed normal for someone like me. And I am jealous.
Jealous of the fact that I can’t stand mine to be long,
And yet, if it were cut,
It feels like something is ripped out of me.
I wake up sometimes, and the stranger is gone.
But I still don’t recognize the figure in front of me.
So familiar, yet so odd.
They smile when I forcefully smile.
Which is a plus. I think.
And they have that aggravating hair.
It’s bearable to look at.
I don’t throw up.
Which is a plus.
I wake up in panic.
And I can’t breathe.
I can’t see the stranger or the familiar figure.
And I feel like my insides are being turned.
Where are they?
It’s terrifying. The idea of them being gone.
Why are they gone?
When I can’t find either of them, I feel like vomiting.
A sense of despair clings to me as I stare at the blank mirror.
No one is staring back at me.
It feels like my lungs are filling with water, and I am drowning. Drowning in this nonexistent sea.
Trying to float, and yet I can’t.
Because the more I try, the more I feel like I am sinking.
Sinking with a heavy nonexistent ship.
And all I can hear is static.
Numbness all around me .
Making me wish I had drowned.

These are the days I avoid mirrors.
I avoid the color blue and the color pink.

Which makes me feel like I’ve been hit by a train.
Except sometimes it feels like a train is a lighter punishment, Compared to what I feel.

It lasts days, before the stranger comes back.
And I don’t know whether to be elated or enraged.
Excited that they’re back, that they are there,
That I don’t have to do this alone, or angry.
Angry for not being normal.
Despite feeling relief that they are back, I avoid the mirror for days. Before I can get comfortable with who’s staring back at me. Features different from what people call the norm.
Yet blinking when I do.

Brushing their teeth when I do.
And it takes days for me to get accustomed to it.
Days to not look at him and shout in anger and frustration.
Because why do they get to be like that and I can’t.
Yet when I do get accustomed, he is gone.
Gone like he was never there, and is replaced with her

The ‘normal’, yet unfamiliar face staring back at me.
Dead, soulless eyes.
Eyebags for days.
Sporting the same defeated look I do.
And I don’t know whether I should burst into tears,

Because finally, it’s kinda normal.
And yet, the look she gives me makes me feel disgusted.
I don’t like her. And yet I am glad.
Glad she’s back, and I’m normal.
But I’m still in that void, a dark void.
Filled with unopened Barbie dolls and new soccer balls.
I’m still chained to that void. Unable to move.
The strangers pulls me to him, but I am tired, tired.
Too tired to move, or eve breathe by the time he gets close to me. She drags me back, but I claw away, or at least try to.
I can never put up a good fight.
The days I get pulled like a game of tug of war,
Are days I fee like I will vomit.

Yet I don’t despise them, no matter how much it hurts. At least they are there in the mirror and I am not alone.
It’s the days I am left in the middle, all alone, that it feels like
I am sinking and that mud is filling my lungs.
It gets hard to breathe, and I feel like every inch of my strength is zapped.
As I try to look for him and her.
I’d rather vomit, than be alone.
Being alone is scary,
Not seeing them staring back at me in the mirror.
It’s terrifying.
There are days when it becomes too much and all I can do is cry.
Because the stranger is there when I wanted her to be there.
Or she’s there but I wanted him there.
And I can’t do anything about it. I can’t do anything about the sensation I feel
Of wanting to shed my own skin, because it doesn’t look right.
The parts are different.
No matter how much I cry, I can’t do anything about it.
Because it’s not ‘normal’.
But what exactly is normal?
I don’t know.
All I know I is that often times I wake up with a stranger in the mirror, and other times with a

familiar, yet odd figure.
But nothing is more terrifying than waking up and neither is there.
Because if they’re not there, what am I?
I would rather feel like vomiting when I stare at the mirror,
Than feel like I am being drowned by mud.
Hopefully one day I can muster up a real smile to whoever is staring back at me.
And we become friends.

by Anahi Cabrera

She is gone now

The sight

of flour on skin,

age spots

form an archipelago

across your arms.

a clutter
of dusty
pictures and
rosaries
under your bed.

Life, you’d sometimes think, hadn’t been that good to me.

Girdles that
squeezed
your fibroid
infested womb—
An old hallowed out

home to five
Barricaded
Against
Life.


You comb

your unruly

hair back;
look uncomfortable.
The look is not you.
I love it when you just
Let it be—

rather than tame it
And look like a scared
Old lady
Instead of the courageous
Heroine that you are.



You still store things
Away
In overflowing drawers
And cupboards
Afraid that one day
You will need

Something

& it will not be there:

What trauma
Gave birth to that?



You say,
I feel your mother
Is doing something

To me—

Like I can’t put my
Fingers on it –
Your hands, exasperated go up in the air

Only to slowly come down

And rest, at your side

Powerless.

We loved each other once.

The nights
I fell asleep
under the
symphony
of your snores:
Uncountable.
Sleeping,
side by side
A woman, and her grandchild.




You say,
Pointing to
A brand new

Press, you say,

Look at that

What my
daughter

Buy for me—

You know what she say?
She say,

when you die

I’m taking it back.

What kind of thing

Is that to say? And you

Schweups at the

callousness of your


Child.



You’ve got:

Two kitchens,

a Toilet

without a door,

social security

checks

deposited

In

Brooklyn.


We walk
down the street
and you smile at
a stranger,
and giggle like
a child...
But wait nah,
you say, stopping,
in a daze. I
thought that was
Nen-nen, but
nen-nen
die long
time now...

What is happening to me, you ask?

& no matter how
hard I try,

I can not answer:

Alzheimers.

by Lesley-Ann Brown

The tears you cry to control me

The privilege that comes

with your identity

or absence of melanin

is the same shade

as the tears you cry

to control me

the struggle you claim

to comprehend

fails to acknowledge

our experience

robbing us of

our space to heal

when you ask

if I need help

you are doing so

to absolve your guilt

of your ancestors

ask me instead

if you may begin to listen

to my stories

not from the written word

of those who claim to know it

better than those of us

who have lived it

but by delivering yourself

to the lion’s mouth

by Rina Malagayo Alluri