Airport Road 07

ISSUE 07

AIRPORT ROAD www.electrastreet.net/airportroad NYU Abu Dhabi 19 Washington Square North New York, NY 10003 Send inquiries to: Cyrus R. K. Patell Publisher Airport Road NYU Abu Dhabi PO Box 903 New York, NY 10276-0903 electra.nyuad@gmail.com

© 2018 Electra Street

Front and Back Cover Images: Details from On a Ferry by Tom Abi Samra

CO-EDITORS

EDITORIAL BOARD

Nada Almosa Juliรกn Carrera Rosy Tahan Salha Al Ameri Einas Alhamali Amal Al Shamsi Bhrigu Bhatra Sadaf Habib Mashal Memon Jamie Uy

MANAGING EDITOR FOR DIGITAL

Viswanath Chandrasekar

FOUNDING EDITOR

Sachi Leith

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Deborah Lindsay Williams

PUBLISHER

Cyrus R. K. Patell

Issue 07 Spring 2018

CONTENTS PROSE Alice Huang, Bill’s Place 17

Vamika Sinha, arrangements 18

Vamika Sinha, in a bathroom at the silver center 23 Zoe Patterson, Mother 24

Thirangie Jayatilake, Broken Waves 42 Alice Huang, Contemplation 48

Neha John, Notes of sands from home or buildings, buildings, buildings 62 Amna Alharmoodi, 19 65

Muhammad Shehryar Hamid, Plastic Overdose 70 Alice Huang, Simmer 79

Vamika Sinha, in a sentimental mood 89

Smrithi Nair, Girl Surprises All, Saves the World 99 Aiman Khurram, My Pillow Book 121 POETRY evgenija filova, poem for a place 10 Shamma Al Bastaki, Unibrow 13 Aiman Khurram, Untitled 26

Zoe Patterson, A Beats on the Beach True Story 28

Arthur De Oliveira, Being Eaten Alive is Unlike Anything Else 32 Rosy Tahan, In Your Absence I Read Sartre 35

Shamma Al Bastaki, The Sparrows Are Waiting/Shoot 36 Arthur De Oliveira, The Axolotl 38

Amal Al Shamsi, Faces of the Surface 46

Thirangie Jayatilake, Washington Square Park 50 evgenija filova, night 52

4

Sabrina Zhao, To Me 55

Zoe Patterson, Untitled 56

Muhammad Shehryar Hamid, In Remembrance 59 Leanne Talavera, Supposedly 66

Shamma Al Bastaki, Concave 68

Archita Arun, to the place that did not keep me 76 Tan Tzy Jiun, Duality 81

Shamma Al Bastaki, Unoiled Lungs 82

Arthur De Oliveira, Green, Green, and Gone 85 Rosy Tahan, Between, a Haiku 85 Leanne Talavera, Indigo 86

Tan Tzy Jiun, Baguettes 92

Sabrina Zhao, Lady Rocket in Israel 94 Lauren You, Dear Korea 96

Arthur De Oliveira, Oh Look! A Street Fair! How Nice! 104

Arthur De Oliveira, Self-Diagnosing Missingness in the Body 110 Amal Al Shamsi, Serendi Pity 113

Amal Al Shamsi, On My Spine, a Manual 115 Tan Tzy Jiun, To Be Read Aloud 117 Amal Al Shamsi, Wo-manual 119

Aiman Khurram, To Be a Woman 126 VISUAL Asma Balfaqih, Soccer Euphoria 9

Kevin Mokhtar, Endless Doorways 12

Adele Bea Cipste, Final Gathering Before Leaving for Faraway Places 15 Alia Al Jallaf, Recherché 16 Suraiya Yahia, ‫الدردشة‬X21

Hatim Benhsain, The Other Side 22

Einas Alhamali (photographer) and Zainab Abdulrazzak (editor), Balloon Lens 27

Sherry Yongyi Wu, Deconstruction 30

5

VISUAL (continued) Adele Bea Cipste, Portrait of an Old Man 31 Luis Carlos Soto, Pigeons 34 Asma Balfaqih, Vision-ary 40

Kevin Mokhtar, Rough Seas, Calm Pools 41 Tom Abi Samra, On a Ferry 47 Aya Bouhelal, Untitled 51

Tom Abi Samra, Life at Markazi 58 Adele Bea Cipste, Biting Cold 60 Asma Balfaqih, Lotus of Gold 61 Hatim Benhsain, Ragamala 64 Gábor Csapó, Smoke 67 Sreerag JR, Dirty 69

Muhammad Yasin, The Kaleidoscopic Campus! 75 Hatim Benhsain, Squeak 80

Nada Almosa, Persian Shield 84 Sabrina Zhao, 14th St 88

Valeriya Golovina, Opening Hours 91 Hatim Benhsain, United 98

Asma Balfaqih, A Thread of Hope 102

Asma Balfaqih, ‫الكحيلة‬

‫ افنان—ذات العيون‬x103

Sreerag JR, American 108

Hatim Benhsain, #jesuis 109

Luis Carlos Soto, Human 112 Luis Carlos Soto, Monito 114

Sherry Yongyi Wu, Once during Meditation 116 Suraiya Yahia, Falleras 120

Hatim Benhsain, Angelique Kidjo 125 Tom Abi Samra, Stroll 130

6

INTRODUCTION Life at NYU Abu Dhabi is a constant flurry of coursework, student

initiatives, capstone shows, art workshops, January Terms, internships, and volunteering. Fighting against the inklings of burnout, we struggle

to keep up with the demands of now and the expectations of tomorrow.

Deadlines become the horizon, beyond which we can’t imagine anything.

In conversations with family and others back home, our city melts away

in talk of our own state as overwhelmed students. Our lives have become limited to the five kilometer radius that is the island of Saadiyat.

The flowers of the frangipani tree are in bloom on the Highline. The

construction workers are yelling back and forth around as the buildings

around our campus grow. The Yas Mall shuttle drives past different colors every time it passes Kite Beach. Turtles are laying their eggs on Saadiyat public beach, and their nests are cordoned off for protection every

Saturday 5:30 a.m. A little girl is leaning down to help flip back a beetle off its back. Theater majors sing across the campus plaza at midnight. Kids are playing football and enjoying their day together. The light of a laptop

screen reflects off the face of student huddled in a library corner, wrapped up in a blanket. The dew becomes visible on our windows at 4 a.m. An old man quietly plays pool on his own in Baraha.

Who’s looking?

We focus on the minutiae of work but don’t pay attention to the details of

our own, non-academic lives. There are more things in scenes and events than are dreamt of in our routines and schedules, to paraphrase The

Dane. And in want of them, who would not wish for the luck of the traveler in transit? Sitting in a ferry, disconnected from the world, forced for the

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duration of the journey to take in the details of the sea, the cargo, and

the fellow passengers, the options for personal entertainment only prove effective for so long before the need to stop and take it all in takes over.

Transient scenes float by and we try our best to catch them.

In this edition of Airport Road, we have collected these tiny moments,

these interludes, which achieve significance only in our inhabitation of

them. A woman blurred on a busy street, bubbles floating in Washington Square Park, a song propelling thoughts evoked by the rushing views from a train, are experiences that may not mean much in and of

themselves. But in lingering, whether as briefly as necessary to click a

shutter or as long as to craft a poem, we become aware of these human

subtleties embedded in our day-to-day lives. It is around these moments, these unexpected intrusions of beauty that we reflect upon our lives, and in doing so perhaps understand ourselves.

Nada Almosa

Juliรกn Carrera

Rosy Tahan

8

Soccer Euphoria Asma Balfaqih

9

poem for a place evgenija filova

we, you go

to this place is a place of recurrences

of (un) becomings

of constant influences

ceaselessly, overflowing

This is a place unknown of not knowing of

un-learning

This place I wrap in towels. Wet towels I buy for you. The towels I buy and then forget. On the shelf, unfolded. Wrinkled.

This is a place I used to go, on Monday mornings. And Tuesdays. You sometimes would. Come with me? Together?

This is a place I cannot uncover

overcome

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Is this the place of comings?

This is a place I came out. I was coming. You caught (up) me.

This is a place hidden. I hide it very well. You hide it from me too. It is the place of the innermost. A place private, public. a place of boundaries on the border bordered

Is this the place of commons? A space for us and for all neither

This is a place inaccessible is it? denied

This is a place I cannot know of. Can’t you? It wouldn’t let me. I tried. I am tired.

This is a place I share with you no one

The place-s exhausted of emptiness.

This is the (place) agendered.

11

` Endless Doorways Kevin Mokhtar

12

Unibrow

Shamma Al Bastaki pull up your blinds you fools

look, a sullen pool

and jumping board number 6 peeking its nose

in the water’s business three men on a bench two suited up

neck ties, buttons fastened

arms crossed across their laps the leftist of the two is

squinting under a unibrow the moustache

on his upper head

is bigger than the one on his upper lip

the third of them

is wearing a polo shirt

and a spookless slouch

arms clapped behind his head waggy tongue peeking out

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there is a fourth man

phantomlike and plodding

sightless as an eyelash in shrapnel they cannot see him

though he sees them

through some reflective prism some semi-translucent lens his crooked jaw is shifting his crooked jaw is mine

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Final Gathering Before Leaving for Faraway Places Adele Bea Cipste Watercolor on paper

15

` RecherchĂŠ Alia Al Jallaf

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Bill’s Place

Alice Huang I don’t know jazz the way those who know jazz do, though I do enjoy reading jazz.

On the trumpet

Brown velvet shoes, his stance was relaxed and gentle, but with his

powerfully puffed cheeks and the deeply locked triangle between his eyebrows, it seemed as if he eternally holds himself at the precise moment right before drowning in pleasure.

On the piano

A man whose face you do not see at all but for a few fleeting moments.

On the pink grid shirt that hugged his chubby back, waves of streams were pumping. At peak he was pulled up from the bench into midair because his weight was so concentrated at his fingertips.

On the bass

A big man and his even bigger bass. Its thick strings and his even thicker fingers. The touch between his finger and the strings was so intimate it almost felt impolite to stare.

On the drums

If the other three were affectionate, committed lovers, he’s the vivacious,

inscrutable, mysterious lover who dances across streets, at times ecstatic and at times melancholic. If the other three were a nostalgic conversation at 1 a.m., he’s a greeting to a stranger. If the other two were a bottle of dark merlot, he’s a chilled glass of prosecco.

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arrangements Vamika Sinha

“Are you ready?” Your mother enters the room. “He just called. He’ll be at the restaurant in twenty minutes.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m almost done.”

It is the day of the meeting, and you’re in your second-best anarkali suit,

the scarlet one with the lace border. Your mother hovers, smoothing down baby hairs, adjusting your necklace. She has been waiting for this day.

You look into the mirror together and see how she is you, but softened with age and fat. It is both sweet and a pity.

She smiles. You smile.

You want to ask her if she had ever been in love before your father was chosen for her.

The possible scenarios unfold in your head.

You imagine ordering food; you imagine balking. His smile could have

one crooked tooth too. He could make the same expression when he’s perplexed, the two brows lifting up in the middle, like praying pilgrims’

hands. This could happen. How will it feel if this happens? Well, you could marry him, silly. Live comfortably in Hong Kong, imagine making his food, going shopping on the weekends. You could agree to a well-oiled life,

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smooth like a bullet train. You could soften, with age and fat. You could become a mother.

How will it feel when this happens?

Your mother looks at you look at her in the mirror. She smiles. You want to tell her things with abandon. You are 25 years old. Your mother gave birth at 26.

Will you whisper to him across a pillow after work? Will you tell him how

you always tried to love the right country (yours) and the right men (theirs) with a fearless intensity, with a love devoid of cares or strings, but could not? You envied your foreign classmates who did not receive strangers’ photos in the mail as marriage offers.

You want to press this ache in your forehead away, into the disappearing

well that appears only for you in the hollow of your mother’s collarbones.

You ache that this ache exists so much already because of her. You could say it.

One summer, you tried making rotis with your mother. They kept tearing under the rolling pin. You gave up and spent the afternoon lighting and unlighting the stove to stare at the blue part of the flame.

He could have the same crooked tooth.

You are scared you will burn.

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Your mother strokes the back of your head with the back of her hand.

In the mirror, she is not your mother, and you are not her daughter. She

is an image, and you are an image in a red anarkali suit, and the images are influenced by each other the way Cezanne influenced Picasso. One instability morphing into another, tilting across generations.

You smile. She smiles.

When you were 10, you once pointed out how looking at another person smile in the mirror makes their face look lopsided, as if the smile is

collapsing on one side like a basket of peaches toppling. You noticed this

when you were watching your grandmother in the mirror, picking out saris for a wedding. Your mother told you to stop that. You didn’t understand how it was rude to notice very obvious things.

Maybe your mother wished your father had a crooked tooth. Maybe she

looked up at the sky as a child and asked God for an ice-cream. A helium balloon. Sometimes you watch her reading her prayer book after bathing in the morning. She often falls asleep. You wonder guilty things. That

maybe she dreams about a lost crooked tooth. Or what would happen if Krishna and the tooth fairy met. Maybe she wonders what it would feel

like to kiss, really kiss, a man with a crooked tooth. A big Bollywood kiss.

It is very obvious that she is tired.

“There’s traffic. You should hurry up or you’ll be late,” your father says by the door. He smiles evenly.

Your mother pats your hand and kisses you on the forehead.

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‫الدردشة‬

Suraiya Yahia

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` The Other Side Hatim Benhsain Ink on paper

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in a bathroom at the silver center Vamika Sinha

We listen to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme album in full for the first

time in jazz class. Our only obligation is to stay entirely focused on the music. Through its duration, I find myself drifting in and out of some

kind of meditative state—one of my old friends would have called this

“accessing the hyperconscious,” while a psychologist with a really long name that I don’t remember might have called it “flow.”

I am tempted to write poems made out of planets and color. Coltrane plays on.

After the album ends, I do not say anything. I get up and go to the

bathroom, look into the mirror and start to cry. I don’t know why I am

doing this, but the crying is coming from some deep, knotty part of me

that I cannot pinpoint. Somewhere in the third movement of the album, it sounded like the saxophone was crying for help. Listen to me. God.

Listen to me. Love me. Love me. I cry harder. I know that every human on this planet, for at least one moment in their life, has become that saxophone.

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Mother

Zoe Patterson She lies in a blue room with her back to the door and to the light, sighing in through the open sliver. She’s trying to catch sleep, but her limbs are

creaking, her ribcage quivers, and her oceans pool, sloshing and hushing

against her beating heart. She stitched herself together with a thin thread.

Her seams ache.

Did you hear about the girl’s father? (What’s a father?) Didn’t she used to live in this town? She’s living alone? Nobody to help her raise?

She hears the shower of her daughter’s footsteps and the creak of the

door and the sigh of the light spilling in when it’s opened. She shuts her

eyes and feels the shy bounce of knees hitting the mattress one by one.

The grasping of the sheet, the tugging, the heaving up of the small body.

The cautious navigation over Mother’s legs and the big eyes wide open

in the dark, pouring onto her face. Staring at her, murmuring something in childspeak. A hot hand on Mother’s cheek settles the billowing sea storms in her.

Love’s body shuffles down beside her until they’re nose to nose. When she opens her eyes, calm teeters through the shadows like a tightrope walker in the space between them.

Those things bang their hands and their heads against the side of the house. Jeering and coaxing. Quite a racket.

Too young to be a Mother. Too young. Unmarried. Shame to raise another.

With Daddy issues. Daughter. Girl Needs. Father. Too young to raise.

Alone. Lonely. Woman alone. What? Need Men. Need a man. Girl needs a

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family. Out of wedlock. Bastard child. No family without a head. Headless.

Flighty Woman. No woman breadwinner. Alone? Lonely. Half. Empty.

Not enough? Father’s Day card. Shame to raise another. What? Needs

a father. Unmarried. A shame. A child. A girl child. A little girl child. Half of. What? A father? Needs. Men’s Needs. Cater to. Sex with. Wedlock.

She’ll be older with issues. Unmarried issues. Shame to raise another

desperate. White dress. She’ll be a slut. Need a man. What? Half empty girl. Need men. A man. Bastard child. Lonely. Too young— “Mother, I don’t feel safe.”

So, she pops open her chest, one stitch at a time, like a seamstress does with a dress that needs resizing. She peels her torso in two and shuffles some organs around. Then she tucks the child inside, and her daughter kisses her bones and they wait.

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Untitled

Aiman Khurram Ferris Wheels and Merry-Go-Rounds.

Random strolls on on Piazza Della Repubblica, Florence.

Always Florence, not Rome, never Rome.

Grande latte, decaf with low fat milk.

The barista’s sweet smile.

The hurriedly yet warmly scribbled “heart” or “have a nice day.”

Small things that mean a lot.

“They know we are not from this place,” I whispered.

“How do they know we aren’t?” he asked.

“How we look at the floor before we step: the reluctance, the resistance, the confusion,” I whispered again.

I will always be 21, I struggle when someone asks me my age.

I forget that I’m 22.

Why do they ask you your age?

What does it symbolize?

Wisdom, Maturity or Happiness?

I will always be 18, I will always be 20.

It takes me time but eventually I grow up and grow out.

On days when the stomach doesn’t spit acid and Abu Dhabi is cold.

The wind smells of sea salt, asphalt and karak.

I miss you and I miss me.

I hate the desert / the sea

Perceptions & Deceptions

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Balloon Lens Einas Alhamali (photographer) and Zainab Abdulrazzak (editor)

27

A Beats on the Beach True Story Zoe Patterson

So here we have the elusive Female Creature

Splayed out at a concert Legs tired

Ankles crossed

Her and her pack-mates

In a tight protective circle.

It takes an Expert Man to Approach her

Allow me to demonstrate: First you crouch, alone

About a meter from the pack.

Pretend to be watching the concert.

Hop a little closer And a little closer

Female Creatures Are jumpy Move Slow

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When her guard is down, Get right behind her

And whisper something like “What do you want?”

With a grin that shows all your Yellow teeth.

She’s sure to shout

“I WANT YOURS YOU STUD” And hop right into your lap.

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` Deconstruction Sherry Yongyi Wu Pen and ink on paper 30

Portrait of an Old Man Adele Bea Cipste Pastel on paper 31

Being Eaten Alive is Unlike Anything Else Arthur De Oliveira

A blotch of Yellow and Green

From the sun’s crescent descending

came Julio, my non-Hispanic parrot1 On the subject of Lime vs Lemon2 Limes amongst Lemons is how

Within a heart, acidic juices have passion His peck scratched a thought on my head

“El squawk!” breaks his beak open—an inch apart

“No Spanish3 !” I rotate for a lighter roast on my neck.

I wrote an expression in Comic Sans4 She replied through a quick malign

Look in Garamond and a smile in font nine

1

Tightly observed feathers warm my heart With the something I see in you, not like anyone else.

2 Lemonade on a winter’s day with cinnamon, you compared that to me, not to anyone else.

3 Laughing cut a wound deep in me When my impressions of Kermit the Frog scared you 4 A gulp of one liners swallowed whole chuckles And cheap comedy on the basis of insults, with silent answers.

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Among the company of cannibals

In the vast concrete mountains of death

My skin melts on a popsicle stick; Julio, I— 5 Like velcro—my arm is torn apart, slowly

botanical delicacies are seasoned by cross fit enthusiast, Sergio

This gave away the people’s good taste, as sweat formed above my lips6 In the fast pace of the city7 the canipasserbals commended The good taste, but the seasoning makes it better “Ouch,” I screech—Julio replies, “El Ouch”

“No,” I say—Julio squawks, “El Ouch, Los No”

Death8 is silent with a long queue to what I hope is heaven.

Julio, my non-Hispanic parrot, squawks and flies away.

5 6 7 8

Howling exchanges compacted with images Of which nouns make up nonexistent parts of me My mixed bowl of quinoa, fried kale and meat Sat on the tongue of an unfamiliar language Screaming acoustic Graffiti that smell like urine is chosen over the cold winds that bring in pollen I am waiting for the punchline of your presence I wait not like anyone else. Only I see that in you.

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` Pigeons

Luis Carlos Soto

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In Your Absence I Read Sartre Rosy Tahan

The first human discovery was that of absence.

Fire came only after the widening of the caves.

Anguish is a fire under the expansive world’s daylight.

Anguish is also the future’s demand of a freer being.

To lie next to you is an ontological question.

To lie to you is self-unawareness.

I lie by the omission of your body from my bed.

A digital togetherness is a relational beguilement.

We whisper in blue light what’s only real in breath.

I can’t know if I’m choosing you or not being apart.

Sartrean bad faith is the blindness to innate freedom.

I have cities and possibilities, but still I cave to yours.

Sartre would oppose us calling each other “compelling.”

Existence precedes essence; mine your potential presence.

Denying love’s contingency is an act of bad faith.

Still I misuse my freedom and subtractively sculpt you.

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The Sparrows Are Waiting / Shoot Shamma Al Bastaki

itch my amber bottomed feet the powder is broken this areesh bed is

creakier than your yesterday

the fronds are drier

than the farm goats’ throats in mid July pass me my rifle

take my Tokyo tongued camera

take a Tokyo tongued photograph capture the carnival in my eyes!

I will smile small

can you hunch your spine? like this?

hang the rifle between your striped pants barely bell-bottomed yet let your rifle be a stripe

like this? I will turn my ear to you

one ear

one knee

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one elbow

nose on camera, Nasser

the sparrows are waiting your finger is trembling

the sparrows are waiting shoot

shoot the photograph

tell me when to close my lips so you can shoot so I can shoot

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The Axolotl

Arthur De Oliveira If1 only2 feathered3 Gills4 were5 the6

Muscles7 of8 my9 heart10 that11 turned12

Blood13 into14 wine15 and16 splinters17 into18 saw19 dust20 Then21 only22 can23 the24 heart25 Agriculturally26 grow27 love28

And29 glue30 cracks31 composed32 of33 wordless34 actions35 If36 only37 that38 little39 prayer40

Lasted41 a42 little43 longer44 inside45

The46 hope47 around48 the49 colors50 of51 my52 iris53 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

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Seen 9:46 PM Seen 9:47 PM Seen 9:48 PM Seen 9:49 PM Seen 9:50 PM Seen 9:51 PM Seen 9:52 PM Seen 9:53 PM Seen 9:54 PM Seen 9:55 PM Seen 9:56 PM Seen 9:57 PM Seen 9:58 PM Seen 9:59 PM Seen 10:00 PM Seen 10:01 PM Seen 10:02 PM Seen 10:03 PM Seen 10:04 PM Seen 10:05 PM Seen 10:06 PM Seen 10:07 PM Seen 10:08 PM Seen 10:09 PM Seen 10:10 PM Seen 10:11 PM Seen 10:12 PM

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Seen 10:13 PM Seen 10:14 PM Seen 10:15 PM Seen 10:16 PM Seen 10:17 PM Seen 10:18 PM Seen 10:19 PM Seen 10:20 PM Seen 10:21 PM Seen 10:22 PM Seen 10:23 PM Seen 10:24 PM Seen 10:25 PM Seen 10:26 PM Seen 10:27 PM Seen 10:28 PM Seen 10:29 PM Seen 10:30 PM Seen 10:31 PM Seen 10:32 PM Seen 10:33 PM Seen 10:34 PM Seen 10:35 PM Seen 10:36 PM Seen 10:37 PM Seen 10:38 PM

Which54 swims55 inside56 the57 growing58

Shades59 of 60changing61 disappointment62

Of63 someone64 who65 has66 a67 hard68 time69 growing70 up71 Until72 then73, I74 slumber75 inside76 a77 glass78 tank79 With80 a81 little82 hope83 to84 grow85 out86 into87

The88 place89 I90 hope91 to92 be93 forever94 with95 you96 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

Seen 10:39 PM Seen 10:40 PM Seen 10:41 PM Seen 10:42 PM Seen 10:43 PM Seen 10:44 PM Seen 10:45 PM Seen 10:46 PM Seen 10:47 PM Seen 10:48 PM Seen 10:49 PM Seen 10:50 PM Seen 10:51 PM Seen 10:52 PM Seen 10:53 PM Seen 10:54 PM Seen 10:55 PM Seen 10:56 PM Seen 10:57 PM Seen 10:58 PM Seen 10:59 PM Seen 11:00 PM Seen 11:01 PM Seen 11:02 PM Seen 11:03 PM Seen 11:04 PM Seen 11:05 PM Seen 11:06 PM Seen 11:07 PM Seen 11:08 PM

84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Seen 11:09 PM Seen 11:10 PM Seen 11:11 PM Seen 11:12 PM Seen 11:13 PM Seen 11:14 PM Seen 11:15 PM Seen 11:16 PM Seen 11:17 PM Seen 11:18 PM Seen 11:19 PM Seen 11:20 PM Seen 11:21 PM

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` Vision-ary Asma Balfaqih

40

Rough Seas, Calm Pools Kevin Mokhtar

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Broken Waves

Thirangie Jayatilake I slip the lens cap into my jean pocket and fumble with the lens, zooming in and out, trying to frame the picture. I hate when I can’t capture the

scene properly because people are blocking it from my view. Now this is different, there are no crowds, just a few lone figures leaving their even

and uneven footprints where the waves lap back and forth, and grayish crabs, trying to avoid the next salty wave. Green trails run along the

ground with the occasional purple flower emerging from the crunched seashell embedded sand.

The soft malt sand crumbling underneath my feet gets darker as it dares towards the ocean, whose waves gnaw at the sand, claiming its territory by sinking its weight into the sand, making sure that those little crumbs

would not find its way back towards inland. The sky is dressed in a light orange infused gold expanse maneuvering itself between long flags of pink and purple. The soft white clouds are tinged with a dripping pink

that turns into gray around its full round curves. The setting sun is leaving its legacy in the sky, hiding behind the clouds but letting its light filter through in different shades.

There’s a couple on my right so I push a little more towards the left and risk having a single man standing in the water in my picture.

Two weeks later, I scroll through the pictures on my laptop. I did manage to avoid the Umbrella couple on the right. “Umbrella Couple” because it’s not socially acceptable to be affectionate in public in the more

conservative Sri Lanka, leading couples to hide behind an outstretched

umbrella. But the man on the left was still there in the frame. I zoom in to find a fisherman; I hadn’t noticed his fishing rod before and the little

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brown dog staring at him from the shore. Gray hair on his head, white

vest, and a sarong bent halfway upwards from his knees tied in a knot below his bulging stomach. Fishermen usually fish in deep sea in the

morning. What was he doing in shallow water, where there are unlikely any fish?

I scroll back a few more pictures. There he was, walking along the coast

line, looking in the direction of the hiding couple. Was he here to catch his daughter in a forbidden act?

The revelation leading to panicked heated outbursts of shock and shame under a roof covered with dried, braided coconut leaves. “We can’t have

our daughter associating with that man. What will people say?” Would he drag her away or confront her at home? *

He started working as a teenager, waking at 3.30 a.m. and heading out with his father as the birds began chirping in the dark. He had learned

the ways of the sea; the waves, the force, the rush. The thin gold band

around his fourth finger had been there for 32 years now: he had married

late. When their husbands returned to shore, Lila and some other women would help their husbands unload the long stretch of colored fish nets

tangled into a heap and then proceed to tap the fish out of the nets. The women would wash the fish before proceeding to the market with their men to sell the fish. Their daughter, Nandini, would be at school. The

monk had named her based on her horoscope. “She will be a light to

her parents,” he gently said, tying a piece of blessed white pirith1 string around the infant’s right wrist.

1

Threads blessed by Buddhist monks

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His mind always traveled to 20 years ago. He left the house in the

morning, and Lila met him at the beach. When they got back home, Nandini wasn’t home yet. She’s probably studying at school, they

agreed. Her breakfast of rice with dhal and coconut sambol had been cleared away. They realized she was gone after they learned that she

never made it to school. They filed a report, put up fliers and notices in

newspapers, waiting for stretches at the Police Office. They went to the temple to pray and even made an offering at a kovila, the Hindu temple

where Lila frantically begged, her palms stuck together in reverence, her

eyes struggling to bear the weight of her fright and love, “Please, we will

offer more baskets of fruits even. Whatever the Gods want. Please.” The Kapumahaththaya2 who read her horoscope said that they might never see her again.

Her loss came like a large wave, the current pulling him down by his

ankles, his body collapsing towards the ocean bed, his eyes watching the

gray water sweep above him and the saltiness stinging his eyes and every little wound on his body. She walked to school by herself because her

parents had already left the house. Maybe he should have watched the waves, protected his du3 from the crashing waves. No one would have

noticed if someone crept into their house. She was only a little girl. Eleven years old.

Maybe if he had some other livelihood, he could’ve been the father who would have dropped his daughter to school instead of leaving home

before she had even woken up. So he came to the sea even when he

didn’t have to. With an old fishing rod he barely used. The house had too

much of vacant air in it, and Lila preoccupied herself by taking up sewing.

When she earned that extra money from sewing, the unspoken saving 2 3

Hindu priests Daughter

44

money for whose future? would hang in the empty space as their eyes crossed.

He stared at the grayish blue expanse ahead of him. Where else was he supposed to go? What else did he know how to do? He looked at the

young couple, the air traveling down his lungs filling in deeper, heaving

him down as if a heavy load of fish had been dropped down his air pipe.

Would his daughter ever have the chance to get married? He wondered if that could have ever been her.

45

Faces of the Surface Amal Al Shamsi

Birthday balloons with the wrong age, Bubbles saved from stubby fingers, Clouds, the finest voyeurs,

Grocery bags like flags of the modern world, Cribs, hopefully empty before the voyage, Decorated goldfish in their tanks, Shackled buoys on guard, Takeout boxes in the tub,

Hungry dhows with their mouths too full,

Paper plates stained by someone’s last meal,

Disembowelled watermelons who didn’t see it coming, Flowers from the guilty man next door,

Straws in the shared drink gone too fast, Empty chests,

Chunks of rock, once sweltering stars, Gazes unplugged from the mind,

Childhood memories deliberately erased, Hurled words never meant to escape,

Hands when they hesitate and withdraw, Worries when they didn’t matter at all, Voices that call, call, call.

All that we can know

about what’s hiding under this boat is what we can imagine from the things that stay afloat.

46

On a Ferry Tom Abi Samra

47

Contemplation Alice Huang

I stood in front of the window in the bedroom of someone I had cared for dearly in the past. A cheap hotel building blocked a third of the view. It

was almost midnight, yet the sky retained a touch of blue, though muddy.

The lights on the hotel sign had not worked a single night since I moved in two weeks ago. To the right was a parking lot with cars aligned like a

palette with various scales of gray. The headlight of an illegally parked car blinked violently at a man strolling pass. There were no ant people like

how they enjoy saying when they look outside a window. And the cars on

the road moved only lazily. The night was not dark enough and the streets were not bright enough.

Not every window takes you to the end of the Fifth Avenue like that of the eighth floor of Kimmel on a Thursday night.

I felt like the cheap hotel, the collection of cars shadowed under an

ordinary night, the violently exposed pedestrian, and a streetlight stuck in eternal staring at the boring traffic.

* The view from my window is terribly gray, but I can’t pull myself away

from staring at the Christmas lights on the roof a diagonal block across from me.

Since the first snow three days ago, the city has been quite sticky from the melting and dripping. Usually on these kinds of days, I feel like a

reused Amazon Prime cardboard box, carrying a mismatched piece of plastic that sold itself without feeling a slight sting, covered with

48

messy duct tape and confusing layers of printed words, moving with a destination and no privilege to get lost.

Today, though, I made myself coffee with the moka pot I took with me

when I moved away from my apartment in Florence eight months ago. I

read Hemingway to the December street, and played a song that sings, “I’ll be your real tough cookie with the whiskey breath.” * I watched a video on BBC about absurdism. What is life? It says, you

either move all the green peas from one plate to another, or you jump off the bridge.

I’d rather perpetually move peas, though oftentimes I sympathize more

strongly with the peas themselves, not the pea mover. On cloudy days I

tend to feel like one pea being moved between plates, and I sit and watch people come and go and feel like peas for them.

49

Washington Square Park Thirangie Jayatilake

Last Spring I walked through Washington Square Park and the benches had almost reached full capacity.

I pass by the saxophone player at the base of the statue, pink blossoming around him, intercepted with fresh light green buds,

The guy walking around with a free hugs sign,

The lady with three dogs with their leashes tied to her waist, Innocent bystanders sitting on the inside of the fountain, enjoying the bliss of sunshine and warmth, before the fountain comes back to life,

forcing them out of their seats, the same fountain

that hosted budding skateboarders and footballers just two months ago,

A random stranger walking around holding an Insomnia

Cookies envelope asking “would you like to share A cookie with me?” I wonder why he didn’t try

offering it to a dog, a dog wouldn’t have rejected him.

50

Untitled Aya Bouhelal

51

night

evgenija filova

Yesterday I was scared of taking a tissue out of the tissue box. The tiles around me were round. And blue. I felt like shrinking, my buttons rolling

on the floor. I think my left hair curled to the right. It must have been the sound of paper sheets that caused this. One, two, three, it will be over soon. J and I had a fight …

I like washing my hands. It circles around but it doesn’t come back. We

are continuously present here. I am attempted of scared fears. And holes.

The holes can’t come back. Which is what scares me. J and I had a

fight again. And coffee I said I only like hot coffee. Tea hurts my nostrils.

Tomorrow we will do it.

I can maybe go now. To try to get there. Arrive. Carrying it, holding it. I don’t really know what I am doing.

I really don’t understand what is happening here. The night she told me

look into the night. Onto the night? I see and I can’t see, her loving me. I cried. She didn’t cry, she maybe cried. That cake was good! However.

Tomorrow she said it will materialize. Dematerialize? Dissolve, into the liquid. Liquidity never dissolves I said. I am so smart. I know.

I felt ignored again. I really don’t know how this happened. I tried to

go there, I really did, but the language ceased me, deserted me! she corrected she always corrects.

52

When are you coming back? You left ago. You left your tissues too. I can’t take care of your tissues, come pick them up. Please …

Over there on the left one can see the leaves. Tiny, sharp, glass-edge leaves, out of the tree. The tree was late though. I tried again.

It is wrapped up it was wrapped up. Here I am gonna go now. I told her

I will be home for dinner. I hope she is not still angry at me. T has to call me. L too. Today?

Again?

I never liked the patterns on the ground, I just never did. It gushes me.

Awfully, horribly, hot tills.

Oh, this is so bizarre. I am telling you, I am scared. Only one wave in the only one wave. And then she passed. She crossed me. Overwhelmed

On big streets we can walk apparently. Hm. Mhm. I am not sure really.

Can we? Walk? What?

I let time slip through my fingers. Again. It shattered and broke. I don’t like the image of time breaking actually. Shattering is better. Cursing.

I hear holes. I can hear them. I am serious. They are calling me. Should I come back? Go back she said. But I didn’t hear her. I never do.

53

The feeling of darkness behind a half closed curtain. I always close the doors for that reason. She doesn’t.

It is at the edge of chaos that you need to stand on. At. At the edge of chaos. Can you see it? It is over there, look. The chaos. I found it!

Did you poke it? No? It’s all right.

We can try again tomorrow.

54

To Me

(A ripoff poem of Kenneth Koch’s To You) Sabrina Zhao

You love the kid on the roof

That connects the snow to the wind thanks to the blue sunlight Because I always lay near the walnut tree beside you Thinking of the years of craziness in a bottle Lying on the sea, from Miami to Hartford

Oh goodness! The search of the thousands of thoughts that

Awaken me on the sidewalk leading towards somewhere deep inside My head laid on your shoulders and this pose

Of us at the window always sees itself in harmony

Best at dawn, but unlikely of me and not trustworthy of me For I question the beliefs that you live with and for, as a

Kid questions the green goat that he sees on the fields and oh

I question love as a sheriff questions the murderer at dawn as the

Wind blows his white shirttails in the snow; and so I swim and swim

In the sea that leads me from Hartford back to Miami but no sea; so For years I search as a ship sails from and to Africa, or as a kid Bicycles from Miami to Hartford back and forth My heart so out of place but always receives

Questions when awake or not, and so I love and live And because I love I question, so I live From this unsolved case I live always.

55

Untitled

Zoe Patterson

Walk

Every footstep

Steeped in spider webs Swept; snapped

The tendrils tenuous and trembling Quiet crescendo

Baby spiders squeal Squished.

You kissed my cheeks so tenderly You wrapped my hands in wool

You blew the frost away with breaths Light like eyelashes I wished on you

Eyes fixed on faded desert stars and Hazy New York pin pricks.

We slept in a pulsing grid of

Those deep-sea glowing fish and

Waves of whales I wished I wished I walked

I held in sea-salt breaths

56

A liminal life

Hands wrapped by some new city Absurd sounds and unlikely light A bird a puff of feather flight Unlikely borne by air but There she is

Walking through cobwebs

White from the snow-skies I threw hope on

When I was drinking you in with wider eyes I wished I wished—

But no wishes for those baby spiders squished.

57

Life at Markazi Tom Abi Samra

58

In Remembrance

Muhammad Shehryar Hamid Remember the foul cough syrup?

The one mother would force upon you.

So instead, you’d run away and hide.

Remember how you’d forget even having a sore throat as a few hours went by?

Remember when for the first time you felt an itch on your back?

And how you’d extend your arms, and scream.

But your arms would prove to be too short in length.

Remember how mother would come running and scratch?

Remember when you first had the blues.

In your chest, you felt a sunken heart.

And the view from your eyes was wet and blurred.

Remember how she’d sing you lullabies all night?

Remember when you called her just the other day?

And how excited she was to talk to you?

How sudden it was, all that happened.

Remember how she said she’d never let you go?

59

Biting Cold Adele Bea Cipste Ink on paper

60

Lotus of Gold Asma Balfaqih

61

Notes from sands of home or buildings, buildings, buildings Neha John

At dusk I see your curves and lines. Light spilling forth from your insides.

Entrails of a broken generation. Tears behind windows. Glass panes mask the struggles walled within. Wood glue, glass and vinyl. Your name, in big, bold letters, is printed on my heart. Etched on my mind. You are as much a part of me now as I am of you. Patterns in bricks, patterns on trees.

Lines and curves that guide and confuse me.

As the sun sets, I look beyond your shoulders. A vastness that I still

cannot explain lies ahead of me. Again, I see lights. Markers of civilization, checkpoints of growth and prosperity. But, the dust is still settling. It

irritates my eyes and the sounds hurt my ears. Slowly I no longer see the

horizon. Everything has changed. You are not the same either. I know you.

We shared something. We have lost something to each other, in order to gain a relationship of temporality.

Saadiyat is a strange name. “Happiness� Island. I live on happiness

island. Happiness Island is home to my happiness and sorrows. Woes

contained in happiness. Tears masked by happiness. Fear hidden behind happiness. The color of the water is different here. Nothing compares to its blue. Big, Blue and Happy.

These streets, these sands, they rise up and chase after me. In my hair,

my pockets, my shoes. They come with me everywhere I go. I cannot get rid of it. Washing has not helped; leaving does not answer it either. When I tip my shoes over, the sand keeps pouring out. I’m still holding a shoe,

tilted in my hands that has been tipping sand since 1998, and it does not

look like it will end. A perpetual machine powering nothing but memories.

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The hudhud has come. Or so it seems. The sounds are not real. Pigeons on window sills. Green and white they leave their markings. The little

crown of the hudhud and the pigeons that poop. They can fly, fly away.

And then return. I want to fly. Take this place with me everywhere I go.

I accept it, I accept it all. The spilling sand, the strange darkness outside my window, the tears of a friend, my tears in the corridors, the smell

of perfume, rustling trees, bird poop on windows, bird poop on cars. I

accept that it is all useless. The papers, the hours, the constant thinking about today, tomorrow, yesterday. I accept our flawed understanding

of each other. I always thought I was safe with you. I was wrong, and I accept that.

I would say you saw my heart. My tears and love at maximum intensity.

You saw my heart towards you and my heart towards others. There are

conversations that you know that others don’t. Secrets or special details we share. Hidden within your walls and the pages of notebooks. You are

special. Walls that once confused enlighten me. Draw my understanding

to what is truly significant in life. Guide me to be myself. Drowning under a cascade of papers and books. Instantly buried. Constantly buried. Still

the smell comforts me. Of pages, and people and place. Walls that keep stories safe. Walls that contain the tipping sand. Walls that must come down.

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Ragamala Hatim Benhsain Ink on paper

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19

Amna Alharmoodi Drawn curtains look like frames made of light. “You’re too young to

study medicine.” My family members like to impart wisdom where they

have no business to. Remain here, where they can dissect every choice you’ve made. There are books on how to be successful, but there are

none on how to manage a forty-seven-year-old. We wonder how many

stars there are in the sky, but do stars wonder how many humans think

of them? The grass felt hungry, it was recently fed, but desire emanated

from the ground underneath. Can we only please death and accompany

it by departing those we love to face loneliness? The room was too bright for my eyes, I focused on slicing the apple pie for fifteen people I loved.

The sky was a lazy blue-gray, indecisive choice for everyone to behold.

The waves pulled at my feet, beckoning me to join a carefree life. Home remedies include adding turmeric to an unsanitized wound, rub it in like hateful others who rub salt in your wounds; actually adding a little salt

with turmeric might help. She has these eyes that look at you and seem to know everything about you, a smile that further admits the previous fact, and words that your ears have longed for. Pretty pink dresses

with cut-outs to show off just the right amount but save a little bit for

imagination humiliation. Some cells are worth the sacrifice. Things to

look for while walking: cracks, snakes and flying umbrellas; you should

be wary of cracks lest you fall into one, snakes have a certain irresistible

charm, and umbrellas might poke your eyes out. Remnants of loved ones smell, be sure to sanitize or throw them out, don't cling to them at night: tears make the smell even more intense. How should I shower you with

affection: with a light drizzle, or in a similar fashion to Katrina? We forget how the whistle sounds or how the line is drawn.

65

Supposedly

Leanne Talavera My Aunt is dying, or was dying, but either way she’s not dead

yet. Thankfully, she would grind out, the words scraping past a cigarette.

She inhales the nicotine, her lips

sucking furiously like how they used to against a styrofoam rim, newly bought from the Starbucks that just replaced her high school diner. Heels up,

panty out, as the Chanel that sent her into debt rides up a thigh as darkly roasted as her butt isn’t.

What a day, followed by the fall of ashes, I’ve only drank two glasses.

Christ! her exclamation frightens

Johnny Walker, sends two ice cubes into a Big Bang ricochet.

Fizzle, pop. Whistles where she blows. Her smoke covers the

first blue sky since the monsoon.

How funny, I start to see, that people

who are about to die are more willing to do things that would make them die faster.

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Smoke Gรกbor Csapรณ

67

Concave

Shamma Al Bastaki I have

metamorphosed into a little less than a cocoon

an unripe mango going greener

hearts are like ants

strong, but easily squashed the salty puddle in my eye is reluctant

my journey is a blizzardful parking lot carless and careless at dusk (threathed through by ashes hour-hither hour yonder

drives through a conscience) concave

flying inward

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Dirty Sreerag JR

69

Plastic Overdose

Muhammad Shehryar Hamid It has almost been a year now. Two hundred and thirty-three days to be exact. I have not left the hiding place for seven days, and we are

running out of food. I tried leaving yesterday, but it was pitch black. Even worse, the view through the night vision goggles is fading day by day.

The concentration of volatile organic chemicals and dioxins has been

increasing rapidly. The naked eye has adapted to partially see through the abnormal gaseous presence, but night-vision devices could not biologically evolve.

We have been staying at the hiding place for seventy-eight days now.

Seventy-one of these days have been completely pitch black. David

has judged from our sleeping patterns that we sleep in the day and stay awake at night. Of course, there is no way of knowing for sure. There is no way to tell whether the time on our watches is actually in AM or PM. Setting the time using instinct on the days when there was little

light coming through has devoid us of any real knowledge of time. There is only confusion when I think of time. Who would have thought that

the future would eventually lead us into a history where man was more unaware than ever?

I can sometimes see sparks when I frantically rub stones together.

David, however, has ruled out any possibility of being able to sustain

or even start a fire. “There is barely enough oxygen for us to properly

breathe,� he claims, as he sees me clashing stones like a madman. David had been conducting scientific research specifically on the disposal of non-biodegradable plastic for ten years, up until the onset of the

plastic malfunction. His wife, Susan, often reminds us how close David was to finding a solution to chemically disposing of plastic without any

70

dangerous gaseous emissions. It was in those days when the plastic began to accumulate together like magnetic materials do, but unlike

magnetic materials, it also began to spread and extend flat. Soon enough it covered most of the roads and desert land. Over the years, it spread

over the ocean, and it wouldn’t sink. The world government tried the use

of heavy machinery to force it to sink, but was able to succeed only to an extent. Doing this, however, led to the death and extinction of thousands

of marine species and seabirds. David predicts that only a handful of land species must be existing today, mostly those inhabiting mountainous

regions. I haven’t encountered any land animal in over a year. The last one I came across was a dying monkey, with bits of chewed plastic container in its mouth.

The world had become a strange place. The sole intent of the last space mission held was to capture photographs of Earth from the perspective of outer space. The best astronauts were sent on this mission, and the

pictures that they brought back were horrifying. Not even a tenth of the globe from any angle was blue. Shades of gray and black were most

common, with some hints of green. The forests. Surprisingly, areas with

dense tree plantations were not affected by the accumulation of plastic,

although residues of plastic can be found there too. The forests are where most of the humans, including us, have emigrated to. We used rocks, broad leaves, dry grass, available dead pine and clothes to build our

shelter. It has barely sufficient space to accommodate the four of us, but we manage. There isn’t much work to do, but my girlfriend, June, and I are responsible for gathering food, whereas Susan and David spend

their time researching mechanisms that can restore the adequate oxygen concentration to at least our hiding place.

I wonder why I call the shelter “hiding place.” It is not hidden, and we are not hiding. Perhaps it is because of the news agencies back when the

71

electricity was still in supply. The news would constantly report how some scientists and other people are entirely relocating to the forest lands. Of

course, back then it sounded odd, but within months it became the norm.

It is no doubt now that most of the living population resides in the forests.

The gaseous toxicity has killed every person who chose to stay in the

ignorant bliss of their houses. Many colonies have formed in the forests where the shelters are made closer together to reflect a societal way of living in the community. Our shelter, however, is situated far from any colony.

It was about two years after the onset of the plastic malfunction that the global temperatures began to increase. Over a few months, the

heat became unbearable. Scientists claimed that the Earth was moving closer to the Sun, and that there was an imbalance in gravitational and interplanetary attraction. Their claim was soon regarded as fact when

it became noticeable that the Sun was too low in the sky, and news of

consistent floods near the regions of the North and South poles became mainstream. That was when the world shook into chaos, and a world

government was created as a desperate measure to take a united stand against the possibility of mass extinction.

It wasn’t the world government, though, that saved us from mass extinction. It was plastic itself, granting us our lives to spend in a

nightmare of night. With the sun so low, some of the plastic began to

decompose. This process used oxygen in the air over the months, and released many gases, volatile organic chemicals, and dioxins. These

continuous decomposition reactions took place all over the world, and the air was full of a toxic smoke-like gaseous substance. Millions of infants and children died. The lives of many adults and older human beings

were taken as well, and some were rendered extremely sick, including my father. The darkly colored gas rose as it was constantly produced,

72

and eventually combined with the ozone layer to form a dark endless sheet in the sky. It has been two hundred and thirty-three days since

then. Perhaps the only good thing about the sheet was that it ended the suffering caused by the heat. Electricity had shut down by then, and all offices, industries, and organizations, including healthcare, had closed.

That time saw the rise of many people leaving their houses with no

belongings, hopelessly trying to find the land where the scientists had left

for earlier. They were hopeless because of the darkness, which took away their senses of direction and instilled in them a fear of the unknown.

My father was the last living member of my family, and he lived together with me and June. After the mass decomposition began, he was taken

sick due to the inhalation of toxic fumes. It had been four months since the darkness had spread, and it was already difficult to distinguish day from night. The three of us had locked ourselves in a room with no

windows, to ensure that the air was as clean as it could be. I found an oxygen tank at a nearby deserted clinic and used it to provide a clean

supply of oxygen to my father for a few days. When it ran out, June and

I urged him to leave with us to the colonies, but he wouldn’t agree. A few days later, his condition had worsened. Both June and I tended to him

regularly, until he passed away a week later. That was eighty days ago,

exactly when we left for the colonies. The sky was pitch black then, and there were no streetlights. I couldn’t spot even one star, even if I tried

because the sheet was the thickest it has ever been. June and I were lucky to have been found by David and Susan when we set out with

just a flashlight. I was flashing it as an emergency sign, and David saw it. The four of us were probably the last ones to have left the city. We

searched for any of the colonies for two days once we reached the forest, but in vain, and so we decided to make our own shelter in the middle of nowhere and have been here ever since.

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I often recall the final days of my father. Once I was talking to June

about how ironically surprising the occurrence of the plastic malfunction was, given how the laws had ordained for years that no new plastic

be produced and that it was the duty of every citizen to take all plastic objects to recycling plants every week. My father overheard the

conversation and interrupted: “Back in my days, plastic was ordinary and everywhere, and not in the chaotic style that it is now. This

plastic accumulation is a hoax by the government. Plastic used to be everywhere, and it made life easy. Oh, this reminds me, back when

life was convenient, water used to be available in the market in plastic bottles. Thousands of plastic bottles in every market. I haven’t seen

one in a long time. You could carry water anywhere, and you could buy water anywhere. No fake electronic hydration system. It’s just that the

environmentalists have finally won, but wrongfully so. I still remember how they would start riots, especially in universities. They would create web

pages, twitter accounts, and whatnot to support their campaigns, but to

what extent? What did it achieve them? How could they foolishly believe that plastic has any connection to the environment? Or that recycling all the plastic in the world would actually achieve anything. Tell you what, they would put plastic recycling bins everywhere, but ask me if I ever

threw anything plastic into one of those. My friends were the same. Did

anything crazy happen? Never. This plastic disaster outside is just a hoax.

They’re brainwashing you.”

In his last days, my dying father recalled some horrific and unimaginable

details. Something crazy did happen. He lost his life, inhaling the ordinary.

But as I’m alive, thinking of the historic abuse of plastic sends chills down my spine.

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Muhammad Yasin The Kaleidoscopic Campus!

75

to the place that did not keep me Archita Arun

dress modestly when visiting a public place such as malls, beaches etc.,

the grocery stores always have at least one Malayali vendor, the Applebee’s in Villagio had some of the best vegetarian food in the city,

our white Toyota Corolla that accumulated a little more dust each day,

the Lebanese/Palestinian family who lived across the street from us have two daughters: one had blonde hair and the other had peculiar brown curls,

living in Doha >>> living in Al Wakhra,

the Chili’s that was a 15-minute drive from home served the best appetizers ever.

West Bay

Novo Cinema

Pearl Qatar: the first land in the nation to be available for freehold ownership by foreign nationals.

Yet exclusive to Qataris. Indians can go, but they will always be the minority.

Driving around these areas late into the night Can I ever live in Pearl Qatar?

Buy a house? Own a piece of land?

Look, have I done enough to look like them? Have I hidden my origins well enough?

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The Corniche as a place of meditation Even though I remained

a foreigner//alien//outsider//guest//resident//expat//human Oh, just be humane to me!

There still remains one sea to cross

We continued to live magnificently temporarily permanently frugally

happily satisfactorily normally humbly abnormally thankfully liberally generously respectfully reasonably comfortably equally privately

considerately financially amiably communally inwardly furtively outwardly

majestically materially consequently guiltily heavily frequently melancholy deservedly queasily erroneously crucially distinctly ferociously eventually occasionally.

Remember the ice bucket challenge performed in our backyard bare like a mother’s womb that has just given birth? In the desolate, abandoned place I was forced to call ‘home.’ What can I do?

I fled from one permanent residence to another looking for the humane and came so far far far for you only to be deported.

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I now see that no matter how many times I rode that dusty schoolbus or

walked around our housing compound or cried myself to sleep each night in a room too big for a 15-year old or visited my friends’ smaller houses

with smaller rooms in the actual city of Doha or went to the many malls in this damned country or even pretended I wasn’t completely “Indian,” I never belonged there. I never did.

Sometimes some of our summer nights return to haunt me when I am

wide awake, the barbecue night for instance, remember how the seven

of us were happy and content with our barbecued mushrooms and bell peppers and paneer, but I am forgetting now my memory betrays me a little more each day

And I say I want to return, but do I really know what I would be returning to?

Passport: returned

Residence permit: cancelled Status: DEPORTED

I pine for this place that I grudgingly called home for a little less than eight months.

It is the shame of being “thrown out” and discarded that continues to hurt me deep down.

It is the shame.

I wish I had departed the way I had arrived.

I wish I had never arrived.

78

Simmer

Alice Huang I have a habit of rereading letters.

1

Location: At the door outside a house I was trying to steal some light from.

Time: 19th birthday. Footsteps vanished in the night.

Slightly tilted head and nervous shoulders. Shy, skinny handwriting.

Inconvenient time, second-to-last goodbye, shattered faces. It felt as if

there was an obligation to shed tears, but my lacrimal glands were too cold.

2

Location: Bed.

Time: Before going to bed, reading it for what I thought was the last time before burying it under my old shoe box.

The overwhelming affection was like: gum stuck under my new boots,

empty plastic bottles in my already small backpack (no trash bin), mom’s nag before a class of teenagers. Delete alert yes no. I was drowning in someone else’s desperation.

3

Location: Bed, window side.

Time: Now. After a long time.

Ruins of time in the eyes, right palm on left cheek. The earth is round

so we would never fall apart. Waves of delayed affection kicking in, delayed like tequila as opposed to marijuana. Tenderness like men’s tongues

against the nipples. Unresolved feelings like tangling fiber of raw celery in the mouth. Side-effects of growing up like a mathematical proof without

properly introduced notations. Sticky texture of the past like skin-tight jeans on a hot summer day.

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Squeak Hatim Benhsain Ink on paper

80

Duality

Tan Tzy Jiun You are nothing but a potted cactus

Placed on the windowsill for an occasional glance or Whimsical pity.

You are everything like a ladybug On a yellow petal sunbathing, Subjected to no one’s eyes.

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Unoiled Lungs

Shamma Al Bastaki

we were just idiots anti-monks

early 60’s, flicking sand off our lashes gargling brackish water at a neighbor’s well

possessed by our possessions cameras from Tokyo

and other metal instruments big metal instruments

big mobile instruments

steel instruments we sometimes said we wished we stole secretly glad we didn’t

because then we wouldn’t see our sweat in the droplets

of humidity that fogged up the windows as we bashed the dunes waving at camel men

in our naked-bellied tomb bats with wheels steel handles that stung our palms clay red

like jellyfish after a long fishing trip leather seats bathed in sun biting our bare backs

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as we screamed and laughed and gurgled and shrieked

and belched out our flimsy, flowery frustrations roaring louder than

the dead dinosaurs moving our machine the pterodactyl screech of engine competing with our ragged unoiled lungs

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Persian Shield Nada Almosa

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Green, Green, and Gone Arthur De Oliveira

my heart is like grass

it gets cut when grown wild

and all that is left is the smell of help

and then thicker blades and then greener leaves.

Between, a Haiku Rosy Tahan

It’s not Pollock’s fault

paint stains everything except the air it drips through

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Indigo

Leanne Talavera Oftentimes, she had a vision:

a field of wheat that stretched out

beyond the horizon of a sunless, crystalline sky. Somewhere in the distance

a single tree towered like a monolith, and its branches were serpentine arms

that shouldered an abundance of vibrant, evergreen leaves.

In those visions, she chased that tree, sprinting

through the sea of wheat that tickled her skin, and

the flesh beneath it. Then, after a few flitting moments, she would be there,

umbrellaed by a shade that sang to her in hushed whistles.

That was what she envisioned, whenever she thought about killing herself—

an imaginary life beyond the living.

Sometimes on that tree, she would find a tire swing, Swaying in the zephyrs. Sometimes,

a rocking chair, scratching against buried pebbles.

But what she liked best was the some times that the sky would dip into an

enchanting indigo, a moonless night that only then made her call that field Heaven. It was those times

that made her contemplations of death more tangible.

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The days bled into months, and sunlight, into clouds.

The more mornings she seemed to wake up to, the more her chest seemed to palpitate with the need to just disappear. But oddly enough, the more she fell

into that need, the more she saw of her beloved

indigo sky, its endless expanse like outstretched arms, welcoming her home. And

her visions stayed where they were, and never left. Even when

things seemed bright enough to shoo them away, her field continued to suffocate under her feet as she sprinted along its soil, her heartbeat

a series of wingbeats the minute she stepped into the shadows of its only tree. Soon, above her field, only ever hung indigo skies.

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14th St Sabrina Zhao

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in a sentimental mood Vamika Sinha

My high school history teacher, Mr Hoosain, would sometimes put on

old Beatles records or Gil Scott Heron and deviate from the syllabus to talk about The Great Gatsby or his life during the apartheid regime in

South Africa. As a young brown Muslim man forced to live and travel only within “colored” zones, he joined local resistance movements

against segregation. One day, he heard that one of his colored friends,

a resistance fighter, had tragically died from a car bomb planted by the authorities. I looked around then, at my “international,” “integrated”

classroom, and felt something cold like an ice block inside my chest.

Nobody spoke for a while after that.

One day, I told Mr Hoosain I was thinking about studying literature and he did this thing when he got excited, where his eyes bulged and he started bouncing on his toes. He started to lend me a lot of books after that, his Saturday-morning-in-bed favorites, as he called them. “You’ll like this,” he’d say, handing me a red paperback. “It has a lot of music running

through it, especially jazz and sixties tracks.” I started making playlists out of the novels, combing through YouTube on school nights. In one book, the music of John Coltrane was described so affectionately, with such

intrigue and wonder, that I looked up the song “In a Sentimental Mood,”

and it sounded like the taste of a sweet cherry. With that, I began tottering on this often bizarre, meandering path of jazz.

In Mr Hoosain’s class, we would spend a lot of time straying into the worlds of music and literature—jazz, rap, paperbacks—and having

spontaneous, passionate discussions that transcended the cliquey

boundaries of high school interaction. “Don’t you see? The Great Gatsby

is not about an ill-fated lover. It’s about the Jazz Age, the swing of a giddy

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generation, the money and optimism and the loss of it. It’s about hope— and the American dream. This dream is false, Fitzgerald is trying to say.

It’s an alloyed dream, the furthest from gold you can get,” Mr Hoosain

would say, his eyes shining, our eyes shining, all of us replete with new

ideas. I would picture a younger version of him, learning the news of the

car bomb, his friend, and think of how every people and every nation has a dream, each one equally blue and alloyed.

Last year, Mr Hoosain died from a heart attack. I realized the person who

taught me how to unfold the past would now always belong to the past— and remain there for the immeasurable amount of time that is forever.

When I first heard about his death, my initial thought was that I can never go back. I can never go back and talk to him, never thank him for all that he did for me, for all of us, and the words and music he offered me to fill in the coloring lines of my existence. In my mind, a quote from Gatsby

resurfaced: “You can’t repeat the past. You can’t repeat the past.” Now

it’s 1 a.m. in a New York diner, and I suddenly think of Mr Hoosain again.

I tell my friend sitting across from me that I had never really cried for

anyone’s death before that. In my head, I remember how every time John Coltrane or Charlie Parker improvised a ripe, delicious solo, it was never played the same again. But generations of students continue to unfold, inscribing these solos to their memories, hoping to glean some of that same magic themselves.

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Opening Hours

Valeriya Golovina

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Baguettes

Tan Tzy Jiun Old Cantonese man with a wrinkly face smiles

As young Malaysian Chinese girl shyly points to the poulet au champignon noir

A reduction of a historical dish to infantile terms in a Colonizer’s language

He fills her takeaway box to the rim and she knows This gesture of nourishment

It reminds her of her late grandmother who would chide her for eating too little

And as he turns to slide the box into the microwave

She briefly caught a glimpse of Po Po’s silhouette heating up leftovers on the sticky ancestral stove

Cutlery or chopsticks?

He inquired in Cantonese, holding up a packet of plastic spoon and fork on one hand and bamboo chopsticks on the other

European or Asian?

Colonized or resisting colonization?

Comment on-dit “chopsticks”?

“Les baguettes!”

They both laugh because once again the colonizer’s tongue fails to encapsulate their epistemology

A stick of bread, to describe the warmth of laughter-filled reunion dinners where three generations gather on round tables?

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A stick of bread, to describe the ancient philosophies behind our food and the way we eat them?

A stick of bread, to describe the alienation of 50 million Chinese migrants when their accents are poked fun at, their customs shamed, their beautiful eyes mocked?

Vous parlez français?

Je suis… en train de… l’apprendre.

He nods

He understood and for the first time since she arrived she felt Okay

About not mastering the language just yet So of course

In an act of solidarity to the smiling old Cantonese man with wrinkly face And millions who came before her

Young Malaysian Chinese girl chooses Les baguettes

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Lady Rocket in Israel Sabrina Zhao

The wilderness the vastness the yellowness the greenness Only a tint of red that my sunglasses hold tightly

To the views that I blink at but never know when or how

The vast-land and the vast-sea so gentle and caring but so unreal This is no Paris Texas for me

No Ry Cooder on headset, but an unknown mezzo-soprano voice Sleepy lazy tunes awake me that I finally forgo blinking

Unclear and slow is this melody and so Chloe mistakes as French I retap the phone screen and the title shows: Toi et moi

She made a solid guess but not a right one

Bronze Venus born in St. Louis with deux amours

Or the Americana Tejano guitarist would make more sense but

Neither occupies me at the moment other than that young Korean voice Of a girl sitting in a coffee house whose profile face I had a glimpse of On a paper cover as I pass by the record section in a bookstore In Seoul

The second time I traveled there and I bought some leather passport cases

For family and for friends who assume no more than kimchi and barbecue Only she hears my silent voices as I hear hers, along those rides Her name is Lady Rocket

City bus, subway, railway, train, intercity bus, taxi, bicycle

Incheon, Gapyeoung, to Namchuncheon and then Hongcheon, Yangyang to Gangneung

There was a lot of sitting, but I imagine elsewhere like I wish

I were in a big van, a giant truck, or an old-fashioned triple-story tour bus

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The bigger the better the higher the merrier the slower the grandeur I see many landscapes but seeming different from home

More trees here and also much milder here than the steep rock mountains 455 kilometers

Away from the downstairs of my bedroom where I was told by a friend

Whose high school girlfriend fell in love with an Israeli boy three months ago

And will move to Tel Aviv this summer

I look at the unchanging greenness and blueness through

The window, my sunglasses and that transparent cornea, unconscious of blinking

My headset running out of the battery now, but I let it go anyway

I never met that girl, that friend of my friend, that faceless figure who persuades me

To close my eyes, and listen, that voice I listen to, quietly Is that you, Lady Rocket?

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Dear Korea Lauren You Hi Korea.

How do you feel about being divided into two?

How should I feel about having to explain that I’m from the southern part of you?

That I probably will not ever get to see you from the other side?

There are divisions within you. Gender stereotypes. Girls with pink

cheeks, short skirts, red lips, puffy bangs. I see them everywhere.

It’s a lot of hustling. Fitting in, finding a clique.

At dawn I see silhouettes of little kids studying. Their shoulders hunched, their hands moving. Their heads are down but the day’s just begun.

At dusk I see still bodies crammed together inside trains. They’re

unmoving but buzzing silently with joy to be on their way home.

As the sun sets I see windows light up one by one. Families unite and their metal spoons and chopsticks meet in a delightful tinkling.

Your buildings are undecorated, mundane, and unoriginal. But their surfaces are covered with posts, images, signs, and texts.

It’s a lot of hustling. Can you even breathe through all that?

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Remember those days when I would sneak into one of the small

convenient stores by the streets and buy those pink junk foods my

mother never approved of? Those were good days. There wasn’t a lot of hustling. Or less, at least.

New Year’s is quite a time to be with you. Fireworks, hot meals, and family reunions. Dishes rich in color and nutrients, neatly lined up in rows.

High spirits all around. There’s a lot of hustling but it’s a good kind of hustling.

It’s a lot of hustling, but I accept that’s what makes you you.

It’s a lot of hustling, but I accept that’s what makes you true.

I accept it all; I accept you in all that you are, in all that you do.

Do you?

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United Hatim Benhsain Ink on paper 98

Girl Surprises All, Saves the World Smrithi Nair

It’s such a shame that no one will get to meet the person who appears in my mirror when the room is empty. She is hilarious, and charming,

and graceful, and confident, and tall. So tall. She’s saved humanity more times than can be kept track of. 3201 times, to be exact. But, of course, who’s keeping count? Besides, she doesn’t do it for fame or anything.

She doesn’t do it because people will be impressed, and then they’ll feel guilty about having the wrong impression of her. They’ll understand that

she pretends to be one of the bad guys to divert suspicion until the very last moment when she reveals her true nature and chooses to sacrifice

herself to save the others. She pushes everyone out of the chamber, out

of harm’s way, locking herself in with the toxic gas in a room whose doors

can only be opened from the inside. But she makes it back alive, because she’s supremely skilled. Only after some serious struggle, of course. A

gunshot wound. In the stomach. But, of course, she wants no credits, no songs composed for her, no letters thanking her, no newspaper article

in awe of her. Girl surprises all, saves the world. None of that. She does

what she does out of the kindness in her heart, and her love for people.

Of course.

The best version of myself is not being myself. Which I am completely okay with because being myself is staring at my ringing phone, and

choosing to pretend to be dead instead of answering it. Being shy and introverted, you’d think I’d prefer shorter conversations, but, in my

opinion, they are the worst ones. Especially introductions, oh how I dread introductions. I rehearse saying “Hello, I’m Smrithi” a million times in my head and still get part of it wrong. My name. I can’t even remember the

amount of times I have slipped up on my own name. And that’s the thing about names, once you’ve uttered the wrong pronunciation, you can’t

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just correct it. If you do, then you’re the mumbling idiot who doesn’t know how to say her own name properly. Now, I am highly aware that I am

exactly that mumbling idiot who doesn’t know her own name, but hey,

other people don’t have to know that. In my defense, I don’t say my own name very often. Who does? Therefore, mistakes are bound to happen.

You may keep your judgment to yourself.

Talking is hard when you’re me. I fail to understand people who can just talk to anyone, at any place without once looking down at their feet.

They just sit there and talk about stuff without first writing it down and

rehearsing the entire speech. And they do this while being articulate and

charming and beautiful all at the same time. These people are downright annoying. And quite honestly, rude. Because I feel there’s a secret that they’re not sharing with those of us who trip on flat ground. There they

are, being functional human beings, and here I am, treating myself to a

chocolate every time I manage to go twenty minutes without falling on my face. And seeing how rarely I eat chocolates, you can tell twenty minutes is a long stretch for me. It’s mostly okay: I don’t like chocolates anyway.

If talking is hard for me, being Indian in India is a whole another story. You would think that I would have figured out how to navigate the country which has been the only home I’ve ever known. But, I don’t know if

you’ve noticed, I am slightly more awkward than the average person.

Just slightly. Back home, there’s a genetic trait that is passed down from generation to generation, an ability that great grandmothers and fathers, and their children alike pride themselves on, called bargaining. I am

the exceptional case from whose DNA this trait, along with many other

things, got edited out. So, traveling and shopping are real problems for me. Because you see, traveling by the meter is for the amateurs of the road, the real Indian passenger goes by the much more reliable, and

scientifically accurate, method of being an asshole. The trick is to have

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an unjustified sense of confidence and self-assurance, and no logic. In response to whatever price is offered to you, however reasonable, go lower. For you see, in bargaining there’s no room for frivolous things

like reason and kindness. Leave them at home. The outside world is a battleground, and you must be armed with obstinacy. So be warned:

bargaining is not something for the weak. I have seen grown adults break down and cry like babies in the aftermath of their bargaining episodes.

You can imagine, bargaining is not something I am particularly good at.

Shopkeepers can smell fear, and I reek of it anytime there’s the remote possibility of human interaction. I would probably end up paying more

than what was asked for, and then walk home by myself just to avoid a confrontation with a rickshaw driver.

It is tough. But I am currently working on my people-skills, working

to overcome my fears. It’s been a day and I can already feel myself

transforming into the confident, graceful woman I know I can become

—the woman who swears more and apologizes less. Who goes into the world with self-assurance and poise, and isn’t afraid to put herself and her work out there. The woman in the mirror.

On the other hand, living in a cave with three cats and writing anonymous fiction pieces doesn’t sound too shabby.

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A Thread of Hope Asma Balfaqih

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‫افنان‪-‬ذات العيون الكحيلة‬ ‫‪Asma Balfaqih‬‬

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Oh, Look! A Street Fair! How Nice!

Arthur De Oliveira

Bootleg sources of imagery burned into fear—are under the shade.

People giving and receiving alms with a soul of charity.

A cracked piece of concrete1 floor evokes

All the spirits of a Sunday morning–post praising God. Local-rivers-not-in-town drag sweet water fish

On an ice pool, and a cheese specimen is exchanged for commodity is, Watched by the cracked skin of a man, and his friend time.

Open a pair of parenthesis and don’t forget about the economic crisis2 The watercolor skin that is moving people

Pressed between-and-against the tight stripes of plastic stands

Supported through rusted iron rods corroded with callused hands

The beauty of observation when one sits on a plastic chair and listens 1

Why doesn’t the local government fix the damn road? I swear to God–driving through this

damn street every day and praying to God my tire doesn’t pop has become a ritual in my life, but a joke at the local government. I am in a damn car filled with fifteen rabbits. Have you ever been around rabbits? The frequency in which they defecate and urinate is remarkable, and what is even worse–the rabbit stank I have to endure while driving around the city. If my car breaks down, I am going to have to spend another three hours just cleaning the car–after I deliver all these fucking rabbits. Apparently, someone at the government thinks it’s funny. Look Roberval’s tire popped. How is that funny? I don’t understand, I simply don’t understand.

2

Economic crisis? Look around, this place is packed. Every time I come here, I am constantly

reminded that I am the only one in the city buying a single banana. I go to a stand. I am choosing the best banana when some lady shows up, and starts picking all the damn fruit. Who the hell is she feeding? No one likes eating all that fruit, it may be a posh taste. When I bring my kid, all he wants is some fucking biscuit. Then I have to buy it, because the kid won’t shut up.

But it is not that bad, I only buy him one. But this leads me into my second point, who is she feeding all that food to? Does she have a fucking hippopotamus in her back yard? I wouldn’t be surprised. Rich people love exotic animals. While they deal with some other continent animal I have to deal with a damn flea infested dog in front of my house. My kid loves the dog, so now I have to split my income with something I don’t even own.

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The boiling sounds of a silver plated (then painted) stove

Powered by an introverted fire of warmth, joy, and quietness

Give life to the bubbles that pluft and ploft into a skin of crispy hard liquor, flour, water, salt and finally all baptized in oil.

On a screeching reflection of light from the tired silver stands The morning dew sleeps tightly—then woken by clumps of

Hunched tomatoes married to thoughtless onions and some juice

That is thrown into the depths of the cheese cave that is an open pastel He was COMICAL AND UGLY3 COMICAL AND UGLY for sure

An air of judgment covered the food stand

Reinforcing the state of confusion and fear.

3

I came here to take a break from uni only to find out the disgusting thing I know everyone on

campus is trying to avoid. You hear a little bit here—you hear a little bit there–and you are never really sure what is true and what is not, but you know something is happening, and its d–i–s–g– u–s–t–i–n–g. Pst … look over there you see—. I don’t know what he does, as usual, but I have heard stories of—and—. You know. No one knows what to do. But our stomachs turn whenever we see that. Nobody knows what’s happening, but everybody knows what’s happening.

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Heroism, what a farce!

In the paradoxical impulses of the mind Followed by the judgment of the teeth

Lips and the eventual hammer of pain lost in the head.

Our multicolor purities—nom—on the munches of street food Pure plastic places of rest and the road side of dust Devour the wind of silence until the thirst of a

Squawking child emerges and begs for more and more The right season brings the right chunk of nature’s gifts4 A round eyed pure black pupiled iris from a tree

That erupts and shakes compactly in one’s mouth until

Ploft—Ploft, a sea of pure ecstasy from the clam fruit erupts Woven fabric from overseas compose the thick forest Of linen, jeans, and other bugigangas become lost Alone and midway upon the journey of life

The straightforward pathway had been lost

4

Look rotten fruit, everywhere. You see this caju? See it? Look here, I am going to open it.

Rotten from inside, rotten from outside. Only in this country! Do people sell other people rotten fruit? That’s why this country isn’t going anywhere. ROTTEN FRUIT. We don’t even grow cajus here. This is the God damn southeast. The weather isn’t humid at all, it’s also winter. You want caju? Wait three months, take a bus or an airplane and move northeast. Go there. If you want to stay here, try out corn. The corn is beautiful. Look you can make Curau, Canjica, Pamonha Assada, Cuscuz Paulista. You smiled when I said that? I saw it. Look, look, if you don’t want to make all this stuff but you want all this stuff. It’s simple. We have it here. Look, look …

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Where the water goes and ends up giving fruit

Clusters of cages which contain circular juices Spiked crowns, thick headed seed protectors, Pulps of dreams5 plucked from vines

Into what purse? What plastic—Do they go?

Flip-flop, shoes or skin clustered to the ground.

Cracked feet, tired feet, or simply one

Coming from a bicycle, walking, or simply a car.

—me on a road, a child, chewing sugar cane root

From staring too long at trees I have become a tree —me on a road, a child, chewing sugar cane root

From staring too long at trees I have become a tree

5

My nutritionist told me to buy all these things. It apparently will help me lose weight. Fresh

made Kale juice with lemon, and some other thing I don’t like the taste of. It’s a sacrifice worth taking. I haven’t looked that good since I was five. I turn on the television and see all these beautiful women. Their slim and athletic physique, I admire it all while I sit back slouched over my couch with a homemade corn flavored ice cream in hand. I bought the ice cream over there, it’s really good, some man named Arnaldo makes it. Either way, I go back to my salon and guess what people talk about. The actresses on television and the extreme diet these people are on. Both men and women talk about it. I am telling you I am going to be the next top actress in the country. I got a whole plan right here in my head.

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American Sreerag JR

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#jesuis Hatim Benhsain Ink on paper

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Self-Diagnosing Missingness in the Body Arthur de Oliveira

A round, fat, opaque dot found itself existing within my bloodstream …

Swarming in the bee hive of my body it turns blood into bitter honey.

Bacterial font size it cannot exist, but it chooses to do so.

It leaves puff clouds which flood a flow of blood. It has found a new home and it won’t leave.

Swarming in the bee hive of my body it makes bitter honey.

It buys real estate within my body and grows all scars once healed.

It leaves puff clouds which flood a flow of blood. It has found a new home and it won’t leave.

It locks my chest and swallows the key. Goodbye says its hand while it swings.

It buys real estate within my body and grows all scars once healed

A veiled cloud of smoke erupts within my heart and glues to my skin.

It locks my chest and swallows the key. Goodbye says its hand while it swings.

Pollen swarmed across the body, it flowers into two than three than four.

Symptoms persist and the tectonic plates of the soul move.

Bioearthquakes then crumble the psychology of the mind.

Dr. A round, fat, opaque dot diagnoses a dream of heartaches.

The prescribed moss coat of horrors takes me on a wild thought trip.

Symptoms persist and the tectonic plates of the soul move.

Floods of memories drown the fresh air of longing.

Dr. A round, fat, opaque dot diagnoses a dream of heartaches.

A heart ballroom of waltzing longings slow down and disappear.

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Symptoms persist and the tectonic plates of the soul move.

Lava filled gazes emerge from the cracks of the eye’s iris.

Dr. A round, fat, opaque dot diagnoses a dream of heartaches.

Missingness hits hard from nostalgic dreams.

Symptoms persist and the tectonic plates of the soul move.

A repetition of sorrows brings life somewhere and somehow.

Dr. A round, fat, opaque dot diagnoses a dream of heartaches.

But the weight of prescriptions wears off and then a wish for no more.

A repetition of sorrows brings life somewhere and somehow.

It forgets to pay the rent. With my nails I dig a ditch deep within my chest.

But the weight of prescriptions wears off and then a wish for no more.

I stick my hand. My head. My other arm and now I am stuck.

It forgets to pay the rent. With my nails I dig a ditch deep within my chest.

Face to face. the dot engulfs my pupils. opaque, now I am out.

Everythingness, hello.

I stick my hand. My head. My other arm and now I am stuck.

A round, fat, black dot found itself existing within my bloodstream ‌

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Human Luis Carlos Soto

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Serendi Pity Amal Al Shamsi How am I me and you ...

How am I here and you, too.

The little hand chases its own tail, trapped in a circular cage.

I’ll never know you, or you me.

Yet all it takes is that second second.

Need and Abundance must have thought nothing of their meeting then hatched Greed.

What is control when even chance encounters create ripples.

A fool for happenstance, So that no action will go unnoticed, life must not be a riot of absolute free will.

Am I no more than a wave relying on the stalking moon?

Perhaps, falling into a pit is less painful when you have been pushed.

Drown in illusions: the world would not be as it is had we not been here.

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Monito Luis Carlos Soto

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On My Spine, A Manual Amal Al Shamsi Don’t hold her,

It’ll soften the lump in her throat.

Lay her out like concrete, Wait for her to grow stiff.

The lump in her throat,

A guard against foolish words.

Wait for it to grow stiff,

Lest embarrassments slip out like silk.

Guard against foolishness,

Fear the unleashed tongue.

Recall how embarrassments slip; How blots of th-ink-ing stain silk.

Fear not the unleashed tongue, But the growing barbs.

Blots of th-ink-ing stain silk.

Will it ever be the same?

The growing barbs,

Nourished by the absence of comfort.

Will it ever be the same?

If you don’t hold her.

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Once During Meditation Sherry Yongyi Wu Pen and ink on paper

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To be read aloud Tan Tzy Jiun

I feel too much Like a high voltage hairdryer blowing out of control trying to carry out a simple task

I spin trying to do this and that and this and that and here and there and here and there

Like a sugar rush after a bag of gummy bears a jar of Nutella a basket of marshmallows

I do what I should not be doing chasing after a high I know I will regret Like a poacher poaching a precious animal little known to world to extinction

I prey on my sensitivity my willingness to trust my innocence my desire to connect with someone

(anyone)

Like fireworks that do not seem to end one hour two hours three hours bang bang bang

I blind myself and burn and rocket through envious stars stealing the moonlight

I MAKE YOU WATCH ME DIE IN BLINDING EXPLOSIONS Like a cut wrist blood spurts everywhere staining everything white

screaming the kill before slumping down in complete weakness

I go for too much try to feel pleasure and pain too hard make accidents I

have to remember for life slip facedown on my own mistakes get an irreversible concussion they call it brain damage

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I call it an adventure Like the cockroaches who survived the nuclear missiles when everyone has died or disappeared or irreversibly upside down whole bodies tumored buildings rendered to complete dust

I stay and stay and stay and give more give more give more give more

trust trust trust trust GRIT my teeth and hold on believe in his best believe in us believe in love

Love love love in my genetic makeup (I cannot deny my vulnerability)

I feel too much and maybe tend to think too little but look into yourself and ask if you feel as exhilarated as I do even on my calmer days

I bet you don’t.

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Wo-manual

Amal Al Shamsi Footsteps the pace of good honey,

Knees padded with lilies softens the blow,

Legs sealed with magnets repel other attractions, Spine filled with lead to be always malleable, Waist held in place by that foreign touch, Stomach never full until it is filled,

Shoulders wear shields of silk against the world’s burdens, Neck weighed down by treasures for demurity, Ears are intricate seashells, ornate but hollow, Eyes replaced with pearls accept all things,

Mind stuffed with cotton absorbs the leaks,

Heart pliant like baked clay makes for easy sharing, Words as transparent as her mirrors though not as many, Breath quiet to not disturb the balance of the universe,

If only her resolve could stay as stubborn as a sandcastle by the sea.

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Falleras Suraiya Yahia

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My Pillow Book Aiman Khurram

Fog: Morning fog in Abu Dhabi is a strange phenomenon. A phenomenon more common now in my senior year than it has been ever before.

Perhaps because I spent my last two springs abroad. Yet the fog was very much there this fall too, I don’t remember it being there

previous falls. I have spent all my falls in Abu Dhabi for the past four years, at a place that has become home. A home that is plush and

comfortable, a home I will leave once again as I graduate in less than three months. A home I love yet crave to leave because it feels like the time has come. A feeling too familiar from four years ago when

I left Islamabad and its foggy winter mornings. I still remember that

fog and watching my father return from his morning runs, his orange running jacket drenched in dew. I always found that color hideous.

I never understood what made him buy a jacket in that color at his

age. I saw that jacket a few days ago tossed over a chair as I video called “home� and was talking to my father. My first thought was

that the jacket had survived a long time; my second thought was the nostalgic memory of my father wearing it on foggy winter morning runs.

Enchanting smells/scents: The smell of freshly brewed coffee The men you love

Chanel Coco Mademoiselle

Petrichor: smell of the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather

The faint smell of jasmine flowers on hot monsoon nights Bergamot

The smell of sea

Pine trees in Murree hills

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Scented candles

Strawberries and cherries Warm chocolate cookies

Freshly laundered clothes

The scent of newborn babies Mint tea

Old books and Old bookstores Repulsive smells/scents: Strong Oud on random Emiratis Caked up make-up New York subway Fried mushrooms Gym sweat Feet

Public washrooms

Old coconut water

Smell of another woman on the man you love Love: When someone asks me if I have ever been in love, I never know how to answer. I have never truly understood love; I think I have

never been in love. How can I know if I have been in love or am in

love when I don’t know what it means to be in love? Perhaps I have loved and I just didn’t know. Perhaps I think I did love and actually didn’t. Point being you can never tell, in hindsight nostalgia is too

strong and memories too blurred. In present, you’re too swooned.

You can never really know. I hate it when those in “love” boast that you just know it when it happens. For me, I was pretty sure one

particular time but turns out it was my mind’s spectacularly grand

trick to evade boredom. I knew it, yet I didn’t know. I let myself be fooled. This is usually an answer way more complicated than the

questioner intends for it to be. People just want to know, yes or no,

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and if yes, with whom? But can this question ever be answered so

easily? Maybe by those who understand it. But then, can you really ever understand what love is? Did you truly love someone or was it

merely a complicated blend of infatuation, convenience, availability,

lust and boredom? My biggest fear is to love someone and not know that I loved them, to let them go and then on some random day

years later an epiphany strikes me, and I realize I loved them. What a sad life. But is thinking you’re in love and finding out years later that you’ve never been, worse? I guess I’ll never know.

Bridges: Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge,

Harvard Bridge, Sydney Harbor Bridge, London Bridge, Westminster Bridge, Tower Bridge, Bridge of Sighs (Oxford), Bridge of Sighs (Venice), Bridge of Sighs (Cambridge), Mathematical Bridge,

Ponte Vicchio, Rialto Bridge, Bridge of Peace, Nine Arches Bridge Demodara, Qasr al-Nil Bridge, Suez Canal Bridge, Bosphorus

Bridge, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, MacArthur Causeway, Zero Point Interchange, Azadi Chowk Lahore, Sheikh Zayed Bridge.

Coffee: My love for coffee is almost a rebellious act. Coming from a land under years of colonization, my ancestor’s colonizers (or mine?)

imbedded two things very deeply within my people; insecurities and an undying love for tea (chai). You drink chai with breakfast, after

lunch, in the evening, after dinner, with guests and without guests,

on weddings, on funerals, when you’re sad and when you’re happy, basically all the time. It’s safe to say that Pakistan has a strong

tea culture (imagine the West’s drinking culture except with tea as the beverage). I would like to advance this allegory and claim that Pakistan has a drinking problem too.

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Anyways, imagine growing up in such a land and preferring coffee!

You’re an instant rebel, a wannabe “gora” (white person), a burger

(someone who is Westernized in a negative sense), an outcast. Not

that the world abroad understood me any better, people look at me funny at this “global leader’s institution” when I order a decaf latte

or a cappuccino. What person let alone a perpetually sleep deprived college student drinks a decaf? It’s very hard explaining people my

love for coffee yet attempting to keep my caffeine consumption low and my hydration intact. What better option than a decaf version of

a beverage I am in love with? But the world is a judgmental place no matter where you are.

Markets: Camden Lock Market, Borough Market, Covent Garden

Market, Portobello Road Market, Faneuil Hall Marketplace (Boston)

Chinatown Manhattan, Chelsea Market (NY), Raja Bazar, Moti Bazar, Liberty Market, Anarkali (Lahore), Urdu Bazar, Hell’s kitchen, Grand Bazar (Istanbul), Spice Bazar, Khan el-Khalili (Cairo), Central Souk

(Abu Dhabi), Carpet Souk, Camel Souk, Gold Souk, Madinat Zayed, Dubai Spice Souk, Mina Port, San Lorenzo (Florence), Flea Market Dry Bridge (Tbilisi), Nizami Küçəsi (Baku), İçərişəhər (Baku), The Rocks Markets (Sydney), Paddy's Haymarket.

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AngĂŠlique Kidjo Hatim Benhsain Watercolor on paper

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To Be a Woman Aiman Khurram

To be your own person is hard

But to be your own woman is even harder For they try to limit you Box you

Restrain you

Extinguish you

But, which one of you will they burn?

You, who are a wife

a mother

a daughter a sister

a girlfriend?

Or You, who are an artist

a painter a writer

a clarinetist a cellist

a pianist?

Or You, who are a believer a skeptic

an agnostic an atheist?

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Or You, who are a lover a passionate hater a cheater

a committer

a non-committer?

Or You, who are a housewife

a stay-at-home mom a lawyer

a doctor

an ethnographer?

Or You, who are Fearless Bold

Scared

Intimidating

Intimidated?

Or

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You, who are Veiled

Burka-clad Pious

Naked Sinful

Minx?

Or You, who are Orthodox

Traditional Conservative Conformist Non-Conformist Unconventional?

Or You, who are Dependent

Independent Roaring Silent?

Or You, who are a Drake-fan

a Classical enthusiast a Kurt Cobain-ian?

Or You, who glides at Le Bal, Paris

tattoos in Brooklyn parlours

cleans the slums in Karachi?

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Or You, who are a Dadaist

a Surrealist a Nihlist

an Existentialist a Stoicist

a Hedonist?

To be your own person is hard

But to be your own woman is even harder “But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies.”

For they try to limit you Box you

Restrain you

Extinguish you

But, which one of you will they burn?

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Stroll Tom Abi Samra

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