Month: December 2024

Devour

BRIANNA ZHANG
It is baffling that these people garner millions of likes, considering how they spend twenty four hours like it’s nothing! Sleeping through a third of the day—unbelievable. Ten minutes of meditation? It took me one hour to complete university……Continue Reading Devour

Mango

A drawing of a mango.

BEA AGBI
I didn’t want the mango. I didn’t / want it I was full Just let me have a bit / but my mother said no bites, / peeling and putting it / into my hands, yellowredgreen soft / and malleable in its ripeness, eat / the whole thing. …Continue Reading Mango

Lunch-Box Note

OLIVIA TENNANT
Good cooking requires time and patience – neither of which my mother has. Born and raised by Chinese parents in New York, aggression, assertiveness, hostility, hard work, and short-temperedness are inherent personality traits built into her blood. My mother stops for nothing in order to achieve success. Except for in the kitchen. …Continue Reading Lunch-Box Note

Spiced Apple Cake

MACKENZIE DUNSON
The last thing my mother made for me was an apple spice cake. She always took pride in it because of the expansive apple tree that was the luminary of our backyard. It has always been the most beautiful thing about our house. The branches reaching for the sky, leaves and breath filling my own lungs, its fruit filling my stomach, and its blossoms filling my mind….Continue Reading Spiced Apple Cake

Orange Me Open

ELSA LYONS
Does the orange want to be peeled? Tenderly / I push my fingernail through her stubborn rind, // reveal the bulge of her white-veined flesh. / She’s almost throbbing with juices. They’re almost // circulating through her. It’s almost music….Continue Reading Orange Me Open

Christmas Gift

By SARAH WU
I learned to be wrapped from a young age. Underneath a Christmas tree, I sat below their pine bottoms. Dangling lights brushed my forehead. Taught how presents should be dressed in lovely colors. Taught to be an object, paper wrapping hiding the curve of the natural body within…Continue Reading Christmas Gift

mandarin

ELLA LIN
and she peels me / another mandarin. i imagine / we must look strange, / our mouths dripping juice like broken faucets / into the night. her black hair / falling further, with nothing below. the broken mirror hanging / above wet paint on bathroom walls….Continue Reading mandarin

konbini 

By MIKIKO SUGA
Every summer is a tradition of disappearing. There are times to be corporeal, and other times to dematerialize. It may simply be a matter of traversing impermanent boundaries, where one simply consumes what is in front of them. There is no need to contemplate too deeply, because something is always at risk of breaking if I do. …Continue Reading konbini 

Bite-Size

WILLOW DELP
She is seventeen years old, and she has mastered the art of cruelty. She brings people close enough, lures them with her sweetness — her fair skin, her honeyed voice. She emanates not just a sort of radiance…Continue Reading Bite-Size

Homecoming

TAPTI SEN
I taste dirt. I chew flesh. I pick at scabs. I gnaw at flesh like a dog that just can’t let go. I twirl my fork around tendrils of hair. I roll ice cubes on my tongue. I lick at my collarbones, prodding and probing like a—…Continue Reading Homecoming