The Abolition of Innocence

Raine P. McAngus

When did smiles stop being genuine? Lips touch.

A mouth afraid to say I love you. Disconnected from the boy, who still believed In people capable of authenticity.

Confidently lostMy mind echoes through brighter days.

As I lay in the presence of darker ones. Reality scares the innocence from my body, My skeleton bears the wear of time.

Heart tattered by liesThat floated o tongues like feathers

Reborn in the garden that grew apples of, Grief. Spite. Degradation.

I struggle to imagine the future.

I struggle to find the imagination that disappeared, With the little boy who knew no better than to trust. Bold colors that erased the blues I know now. Moments where the biggest problem was choosing a friend; Not finding one.

It is the curse of humanity

To know infinite emotions

In a finite life.

nikole @nikolehenny henriques

to me, film photography is a continuous practice of learning to appreciate the aspects of life we often overlook, because moments like that always end up being my favorite photos. it’s also an amazing way to connect with people! providing them with photos of themselves and seeing how surprised and appreciative they can be is enough to keep me going :)

Aki Sagi

Dear mom, I’m sorry. That my freedom meant the lack of yours. That you had to leave behind everything and everyone you ever knew to follow wherever circumstance lead you. You built me with everything you had. Carved me from the mango trees and washed me in the deep monsoon.

I’ve never told you that every breath I breathe is simply the air you’ve spent 20 years pumping into my lungs.

I’m sorry.

For spending a decade angry at you.

For speaking over you so many times in the fear that your accent would reveal what it took me mere seconds here to understand. That we were intruders in a foreign land.

I'm sorry.

For throwing away the Idli and Sambar you packed for me with such tender hands. I welcomed hunger if it meant I could escape contempt.

I'm sorry.

For allowing hatred borne of ignorance to seep from their mouths into mine. For telling you to take the bindi of your forehead to save myself from the embarrassment of our blatant culture. Nevermind that it was built over centuries with the nimble and rougherned fngers, the weighted souls, of every woman that came before us. For instead reveling in the power of people that were not my own.

10 years of resentment neither of us will ever get back.

Mom, I’m sorry.

For I know you must worry for me. Fear for a daughter with a broken heart. And I know it’s been awhile Since I've called.

I’ve been so busy growing up. It’s harder than I thought it would be, it’s sufocating me.

Time has woven dread into the deepest parts of my being.

Like those braids you used to put in my hair every morning before school, plaits dripping with coconut oil I would wipe of as much as I could on the bus. A child paralyzed by the fear of retribution. Cruelty took form in the words of 5th graders who were convinced that the oil in my hair was grease, and the brown on my skin, dirt.

Mom, I can't do those braids in my hair anymore. I cut it too short.

Remember when we would go to Dave and Busters on Friday nights?

You thought distracting me with pacman and pinball would save me from the hatred that plagued my youth.

Well, the games I’m playing now are much too complicated. I never win.

And even when I do, the only prize is a shovel so I can dig myself deeper into this hole.

Are you still listening mom?

I’ll come home for Diwali And when you see me

You’ll remember how I would put on the longest lehenga i could fnd and spin rich maroon fabric billowing out in waves until i fell into soft grass dizzy with euphoria Well mom, i'm still dizzy but it's not me that is spinning anymore. it's everything else. the sky. which used to be blue but is now black Littered with stars which used to be shooting but now lie so still. the dry bottle in my hand. which used to be flled.

Like the clouds of the storm above me As you watched me run into the rain. I’d lean over roadside streams where a whisper of a breeze would push along paper boats.

May they sail in more peace than I do left seasick on land beside you.

Do you remember when I fell in love with Cinderella?

Mesmerized by blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes, obsessed with something I could never be. Something I’ve spent a lifetimne burning to emulate.

Well, I fell again a few months ago. But how ironic that he would rather I be tanned by sun and not ancestry.

Because if it was me that was blonde haired and blue eyed, he would have found it in himself to let love lie.

Mom do you remember me bright eyed and bushy tailed. I used to stray from every path you set me on. the yellow brick road was simply a choice I never made.

When sorrow was simply a feeling and not a place I lived. When it was hope that i trusted and not despair. When curiosity was my conviction. eager is something I never am anymore

The butterfies which used to be now hang like dead weight inside of me.

Mom, that little girl you used to know, I think she is gone for good. So when I show up on the doorstep for the holidays

And the bitter November rain Washes me bare, Please let me in out of the cold Even when you do not recognize me.

Try not to worry

For I’ve found angels

In strange corners of life

They see me for what I am. Golden where I stand.

They ask me about my past With genuine longing to know Everyone and everything

That has brought me here. And I am not afraid to sing to them in the language of my people.

I’ll introduce you to them one day mom. You might notice their clothes stained with tears that carry all the hurt I’m made of.

And you’ll see they don’t deserve the burden of picking me up of the foor everytime the weight of this world holds me down. Everytime the memory of you bleeds me dry.

Mom I thought for the longest time that this hole in my heart was simply the parts of it begged and borrowed by every stranger I used to know. But mom their greed never dug this hole in my heart.

You did.

When you sat me down all those years ago and told me you wanted to leave.

I’ve been sad since that day.

That day I realized that the light in your eyes was shallow.

I remember going to sleep wondering what could be quite so horrible to make a mother leave her children.

For I never did understand

The depth of misery.

But mom I do now. Not from lost love. Nor from this world which surrounds me. I harbor the pain within me mom. And when passing people tell me how much I am like you. I think to myself, if only they knew. And in another lifetime, one where you did leave, I do not blame you mom. Because I understand the pain you knew.

But I will never leave, because I have the angels who never found you.

Aki is a Junior at ASU studying Business Marketing, and as for the future, she’s decided to simply see where life takes her

Brandon Ligon is a junior studying music composition and creative writing. He specializes in experimental narrative, testing the boundaries of music and storytelling, and loves recording night soundscapes.