By Aishwarya Javalgekar Milk-made The steaming cup of milk smells like mother; loved, craved, never enough. Flitting between monthly choices—Boost, Bournvita, maybe Milo. Chocolate always makes milk better.  She loved milk, not sweetened or browned,  just pureness poured into the big stainless-steel vessel at 6 am sharp, forcing her to wake up early on Sundays…

By Moses Jeune Palm Harbor: 1am It’s not that I aim to be sad in Florida It’s that Florida doesn’t want to see me happy This apartment these walls- carry too much  the weight of loss My innocence still lingers in the air here  There on the window sill  and in the picture frame Behind…

By Nour Al Ghraowi What if I was never here أنا مغتربة  I am displaced.  If you search for me  in history books,  my name  would be imperceptible.  The historian knew I was here, here I was   when he said to me:  once you leave the land the land leaves you.  Damascus’ soil no longer …

By Zarnab Tufail marathon around my religion “worship” says my mother.  her raised palms hold buckets of wishes she’s asked God to fulfill  and i find mine emptier than a beggar’s bowl right before the jummah prayer.  i try to imagine my folded legs above a white cloud talking to God to let me in. …

By Ariyo Ahmad My pen whispers to my mind To make a scratch on the seed. Thrown at the balcony of faceless. It landed safely on that filth. Insignificant, it murmurs to herself. Bird of the same feathers, I am. When I was in the shell of my mother. I was pampered and cherished. She…

By Sophia Al-Banaa I am from a place where the sea is the color of sand.  a place where pickup trucks hold watermelons, fuzzy peaches and ears of corn,  an old man splitting the fruits with his bare hands, juices running to his elbows for customers who never pay quite enough for his laborious fruits.…

By Amani Batura Brooklyn I am born In the arms of a mother who was the shade of night, if i am the snow i glistened in her moonlight/ I glistened and shined bright, a name that was different- music to your ears, a name that just sounded right/ No ties to the previous roots…

By Rashae Reeves Drought I wish I knew how to make the porridge Mum used to make
so I could remember the taste of saltine crackers and brown sugar 
kisses coated in cinnamon then shared in secret.
 Childhood memories— My feet hanging from the wooden stool as I peered into the bowl, haunted by the smell,…

By Rita Anderson In Barcelona, We Fight Lines the perils of relying on a tourist economy, eager travelers all with the latest copy of Things To Do & See Here Hiking up our skirts we clamber around  and above Sagrada Familia and Park Guelle, the main attractions of Gaudi’s lifeworks in this sea city that…