They say some girls never grow out of their awkward frames, walking around in bodies that still haven’t yet filled, that they thread their hands in and out of each other until there is nothing left to unwind and wind up They say some girls never stop looking down because cracked pavement and playground rhymes is all they know, and who would they be without it? How could they even begin? Tell me that you are not utterly afraid of the vast expanse of blue that can swallow you whole, see everything you are, nowhere left to hide They say some girls never bloom, never blossom, always clinging to their transitional periods like the last leaf of autumn, like winter into spring, but without a thaw; A girl frosts over- a bud before her time They say women are beautiful and girls are pretty Girls are halves of somethings; Women are complete and resolute The difference between a girl and a woman is that a girl has no balance, always too much or too little, a girl spills over or dries up Sometimes her throat overflows with emotion, sometimes tears fall too fast- other times her voice cracks, and the flame in her chest is snuffed out by the arid presence of emotion She is forced to choose, forced to absolutes How is it that a woman can keep her footing on the bridge that keeps her on the periphery of society, on the edge of consciousness, so that she can maintain the ambivalence that keeps her alive? Maybe the bones of a woman are hollow, like a bird’s A girl’s are leaden, weighed down with a burden she can not yet shed Or a burden she must learn to embrace- such is the sacrifice of taking flight The girl grows, she learns. She stops searching for what will make her whole; never stops feeling like a half But what is felt no longer matters as much as what is seen She looks ahead of her, holding to the ground, one foot forward until she can properly walk with the gait of a woman bites her tongue and carries her heart with practiced ease It is her dance- All the world is her audience They say a girl is a woman at the first draw of blood- from chewing the inside of her cheek or sown to the blades of a razor, crimson against bathroom tile It is a story of self-inflicted pain, the hands of a girl are guided by the trembling patterns of those before them It is all but innate, It is only muscle memory: done by rote until perfected. That is the story of girl into woman. They say that such a transition is graceful, caterpillar into butterfly, but the only true similarity is that metamorphosis is largely unseen, it is a process of breaking a former self down and rearranging it into another, smothering pain into a cocoon’s folds, waiting for it to emerge fully-formed and beautiful There is beauty in every girl, so I am told- I have yet to find my own Idols that are beautiful renditions of fully-realized women are people who are nothing like me Beauty is what makes the woman whole, there are already pieces of me that are supposed to make me a woman, and yet, I still hesitate I still cling to what was; what can still be I am the last breath of autumn, on the precipice of transition, trembling on the tendrils of change and wind, I am still afraid to bloom I am allowed to be many things I am allowed to be pretty, unassuming and standard, I am allowed my humanity, but I am not allowed to be beautiful because I do not yet wish to give up my girlhood They say, woman and girl, though separate stages of evolution, share in that they exist in relation to everyone else- Dipping their fingertips in their own worth so that it rubs off on everything and everyone around them I am tired, my bones are still heavy I am tired of being forced to choose between beauty and humanity I am tired of how arbitrary the choice is treated- how am I expected to shatter myself and pick up the pieces? How am I expected to lift my chin at the correct degree, just so the sky will not swallow me whole? To go your entire life constantly fluctuating with the whims of another? Or to live on your own accord, unfulfilled and halfway to everything? It is a cycle easily adopted, told from the tongues of ancient Helen of Troy to my grandmother’s betrothal It is the greatest choice- Do I break or embrace convention? Is that what it means to be a woman? To pick one or the other, and live by it? I will decide for myself, without fear to hold me captive. The sky has never seemed lighter. Cover Photo Source: Dazed

Dear Asian Youth, “Racism against Asian Americans is so normalized.” This is a statement that I'm sure that many Asians have found themselves saying or sympathizing with. I myself am guilty of it as well, and while it is not entirely wrong, it is counterproductive in establishing POC (Person of Color) solidarity. Regardless of your intent, the idea that racism against Asians (or any other non-Black POC) is normalized requires a point of comparison. Racism against Asians is normalized compared to whom? That statement is often an indirect reference and comparison to racism against the Black community. It is a reaction towards Black hypervisibility: the disproportionate amount of attention placed onto the Black community whenever race is concerned. Moreover, it is a reaction to the notion that racism against Black people is already visible enough and that we need to start centering the issue of racism around non-Black POC such as Asian Americans. It is a common narrative for Asian people to react to anti-Asian racism by comparing it to racism against Black people. For instance, in response to being addressed with an Asian slur by comedian Shane Gillis, Andrew Yang tweeted: “It’s also the case that anti-Asian racism is particularly virulent because it’s somehow considered more acceptable. If Shane had used the n word the treatment would likely be immediate and clear.” There are several issues with this narrative. The first is the misconception that racism against the Black community is somehow less accepted within America in comparison to other forms of racism. The truth is, all racism is in a sense “normalized,” it is merely displayed in different ways for every minority community. In this context, the normalization of racism is displayed through the invisibility of Asians and the hypervisibility of Black people. Both are results of the system seeking to breed division between people of color. It is a direct consequence of the racial binary that exists within our country in which whiteness and blackness are seen as two ends of a spectrum. Racism against Black Americans is hypervisible because they are seen as the antithesis to whiteness, the main oppressor. The Black and white binary paradigm of race can be attributed to white enslavement of African Americans that has set them as the standard for racial abuse. America’s focus on Blackness and whiteness as the core of white racism does indeed contribute to the marginalization of non-Black people of color. As a result of the oversimplified paradigm of racial relations based on white versus Black, other issues of race become less visible and are often lost within the artificial spectrum. Especially when it concerns the model minority who are purposefully racialized in a way that elevates them to the white status and thus makes them invisible in a white America. The intentional emphasis of the model minority blurs away focus from disadvantaged Asian Americans and seeks to invalidate the struggles of other minority communities for living in poverty. It is a focal point of white supremacy to display the successes of Asian Americans' as proof that systemic racism doesn’t exist. Nonetheless, Black people are not responsible for creating this artificial racial hierarchy. The involuntary hypervisibility of Black experiences is not a privilege nor is it the fault of the Black community that our experiences as the model minority are rendered “invisible.” It is not the job of solely the Black community to dismantle the system of Black against white; instead it is all of our jobs as minorities to combat the system which purposefully pits people of color against each other. It is counterproductive to partake in an oppression Olympics in an attempt to bring attention to our own issues. One does not need to degrade the Black community to uplift your own voice. Continuing the legacy of anti-Blackness will not liberate Asian Americans from racism under white supremacy; if anything, it only preserves it. It is imperative to understand that when we address racism, it is up to our community to raise and organize awareness for our own issues. It is an unfortunate reality, but we cannot expect those outside of our community to immediately recognize that racism against us exists to such an extent without continuously pushing to bring attention to it. It is not the Black community’s fault that their movements and racial issues have garnered “more attention” than ours. The Black Lives Matter movement did not, however, gain momentum this past year because anti blackness is “less normalized” or called out more. It took centuries of movements and protests shedding light on racism against the Black community, for our government and society to even begin to acknowledge the issue of systemic racism. This is an example of why hypervisibility and visibility are not one and the same. Hypervisibility doesn’t mean that Black people have triumphed over racism. Black people are hypervisible as the “other,” as the antithesis to white America. It means that while anti-Blackness within America is scrutinized (such as the perpetuation of black stereotypes or police brutality), it is often not recognized. The fact that lynchings and sundown towns continue to exist is proof that despite it’s hypervisibility, the Black community is not always visible. To return to the original point, racism against Asians is normalized, but so is racism against every person of color. The normalization of racism against Asians is exhibited through its invisibility, while the normalization of racism against Black people is exhibited through its hypervisibility. Both are intentional products of the same system. Making these comparative statements only serves to increase division between people of color and shifts focus away from the system of racism itself. Indeed, we should not be letting racism against our community remain invisible but we should strive to bring awareness to our plights without invalidating the progress that the Black community has made for themselves. Progress will not be made as long as we remain divided. - Feileen Li Cover Photo Source: CNN

The other day, I burnt the rice. With my mom away in quarantine and my sister unable to cook rice at home, I––the type of person who could only cook mac and cheese, and cup ramen––was in charge of cooking the rice. Following my mom’s instructions via text, I put six cups of rice into a pot, rinsed it several times until the water became mostly clear, and started the heat on high. I set the timer to twelve minutes. Within eight minutes, I could smell something burning, but I wasn’t sure. I checked on the rice, and there was a faint smell of burning accompanying the steam that arose. However, being the clueless person I was, I figured that the smoking was normal and continued to let the rice cook. A few minutes later, the smell became stronger. I called my dad, who also sensed the burning odor upon his arrival. We immediately turned off the stove and took the top off the rice, and yes, the rice was burnt. He was annoyed (maybe it was a mixture of hunger and the fact that I couldn’t even cook rice correctly). Sighing, my dad scraped the burnt rice into the trash can while I stood awkwardly by the entrance of the kitchen, apologizing. Somehow, I had made a mistake when cooking the rice. He asked me if the fire was too high or if I had added too little water. He asked me what I did wrong, but I couldn’t respond. Unsure myself, I texted my younger sister, telling her that our dad was furious. She replied, “Did you put the rice on the small burner?” It hit me––I had stupidly used the larger burner, not thinking about the difference in heat. When I told my dad (reluctantly), he reached the peak of his anger, resulting in a long lecture about how I need to “think” and “use my brain” and not go through life acting “blindly” like “everything will be okay.” My soul felt backed up into a corner, the words surrounding me and allowing no escape. He went on: “I keep telling you that you have to think. Use your brain. Question things. That’s the only way you gain depth. You need to wonder. Like, how does a car get made? What are the parts needed to make a car? Where do those parts get manufactured? Does that play a role in trade? Just think, Hannah. I keep telling you this constantly. Use your head, for once!” His tone was acrimonious, bitter. Lines creased his forehead. I had simply burned rice. It was a stupid mistake but a fixable one. Did he need to get so exasperated? He finished rinsing and cleaning the pot before heating himself lunch from some leftovers. Since I didn’t want to eat the leftovers from the night prior, I waited for my sister to help me prepare lunch. My dad didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. When I walked into the kitchen for water while he made himself a protein shake, his eyes were averted and glued onto the floor. I sighed and acted as if nothing happened since that’s the way things often worked at home. Conflict to silence then wading it out. I hated it. I could never understand my dad. In the end, the rice that my sister made was dry –– she didn’t add enough water. Since my dad often got in these fits of anger, all I had to do was wait. And the next day, we went on to talk about his new swimming gear for exercising, and I went to discuss my anxieties about school. And so, we moved on. But I stopped trying to make the rice. Cover Photo Source: Seizure

A satirical piece about how the Western cosmetics industry and Eurocentric beauty standards frequently market any possible feature as insecurity that could be solved with product. Hello everyone and welcome back! If you’re new around here, welcome. My name is Hannah and I enjoy long walks on the beach, sometimes crush caffeine tablets in my boba, and cry myself to sleep every night wondering about how my crow’s feet will look at my funeral and how it all went wrong. Today, I am going to show you how to look beautiful in ten easy steps. Before we start, don’t forget to follow me on all my social media, and hit that bell icon so you get a notification every time I post. Now without further ado, let’s get into the tutorial. Step 1: Don’t be ugly. The first step to any important beauty routine starts when one is a fetus. Every beautiful person pops out of the womb already plump with youth. If you’re over the age of 12 hours and are not a glowing supermodel, then you are obviously a freak of nature and we must cover that immediately. Don’t worry, I know from experience. When I see my reflection I wonder who let an overweight bulldog enter the house! Lucky for you and me, every cosmetic company has the solution. They can solve all of your insecurities and skin-deep need for perfection with product placement and profit. Step 2: Skin Just because you want to be drop-dead gorgeous does not mean you have to have a deathly complexion. Any good start to applying makeup or just going about your day is skincare. The most important thing to remember about skincare is that the more likely a product’s price tag will cause you to put a second mortgage on your house, the more likely it is going to work. If you are not able to afford good skincare marketed to you, then you are simply too poor to be beautiful — which is a pity. Thankfully, you can follow these next steps even if you don’t have the proper skincare, but you will be put at a terrible disadvantage. The ‘e’ in ‘vitamin E’ stands for expense! Step 3: Priming Next, we are going to prime. Now, you probably have moon craters for pores but we can fix that with primer. The best kind should be one with a thick yet slippy texture. Just spackle it on your brick face to fool people into thinking your skin has no texture whatsoever. Your face has to be so smooth it lacks any possible friction, so much so that a toddler could slide off of your skin like lubricated playground equipment. The ‘s’ in ‘smooth’ stands for silicone! Step 4: Foundation With foundation, the best type of formula for this is one that has a skin-like finish and a weightless feel but with maximum coverage. We want to make it look like our skin is naturally flawless and airbrushed but obviously use a product that’s designed to obscure what is naturally a problem area, to begin with. It is also paramount that you pick the correct shade for your complexion. If you are often referred to as ‘fair’, ‘light’, ‘beige’, ‘pale beige’, ‘fair beige’, ‘light beige’, or ‘ivory’ (a timeless classic), go a couple of shades darker so you’ll look less placid and sickly but fit perfectly into the ‘racially ambiguous’ zone. You can appear ‘glowing’, ‘healthy’ and ‘exotic’ without experiencing any of the grievances that people in marginalised groups with darker complexions have to deal with on a daily basis. If you have a complexion deeper than slightly aged paper, it is quite unfortunate that you are not the type of ‘healthy’, ‘glowing’ and ‘exotic’ that makeup companies think are worth marketing to in the first place, so best of luck! Hide every single speck of pigment on your skin by completely blanking out your face with an entirely new colour. Apply with a damp sponge or brush to cover your complexion. The ‘m’ in ‘melanin’ stands for marginalisation! Step 5: Concealer When wrinkles and the possibility of people seeing my actual face haunt my every waking moment to the point that I can’t think of anything else but that piddly patch of pigmentation on my forehead, I don’t sleep. This means I often carry dark and sunken under-eye bags the size of shopping totes. Like many individuals working overtime or late shifts, it is common to try and trick people into believing you are a put-together, functioning human in society who is always bright, chipper, and ready to tackle anything and everything the day wallops at you — including self-esteem issues. One way to do this is to not scare people with the eyes of Nosferatu. Although institutions reinforce unhealthy work ethics that cause people to sacrifice their wellbeing for deadlines, normalising all-nighters and sleeplessness, you can either use a peach-toned concealer to correct blue tones under the eyes or a shade lighter than your foundation to highlight and brighten. Concealers that are highly pigmented, non-drying, self-setting, creaseless, correcting, luminous, lifting, pore-filling, reduce the appearance of fine lines, age-reversing and pay your taxes with a doe-foot applicator, are ideal to highlight your under-eyes with the illusion of a bouncy, bountiful, and youthful glow. Cast a pretence that you are well-rested and had endless hours of beauty sleep when you most definitely have not. This can also assist with the facade of being a brighter person, and less like your mental wellbeing is hanging by very frayed strands of desperation. The ‘c’ in ‘coverage’ stands for conceal don’t feel, don’t let them know! Step 6: Sculpting A usual rule-of-thumb when it comes to bronzing, contour and highlight is that warmth and shading bring areas back (like a shadow) and highlight brings areas forward. When combined they give dimension to the face. Do you know what doesn’t have dimension? Fat faces. As a fellow plump dumpling, I understand that I am not seen as conventionally attractive according to modern standards. It has only been in recent years that larger frames are considered attractive and complimented as ‘thicc’ rather than ‘ugly fatass’ since hourglass figures have been popularised and gawked at in internet spaces. But we must remember that even if you’re packing in the trunk, you must have a thin waist because of dimension. Back to face sculpting. Highlight on the high points of the face such as the nose or chin, if it doesn’t look like you can stack books on your cheekbones then you need to pack on more highlight. Blind the bigots with your beaming bone structure! Cut the cheeks with a cream or powder formula that beautifully blends into the skin with a cool or neutral undertone to sculpt, or even a warmer undertone to bronze. The contouring products must be applied to the hollow of the cheeks and chin to erase any possible hint of a double chin. We want to be thicc, but not that kind of thicc. Double chinning is sinning. The ‘c’ in chiselled stands for chub! Step 7: Blush Like a shy and flustered doll with flushed apples, the most successful way of simulating blood rushing to the face with a fresh flush is blush — which is essentially adding back the colour you initially blanked out with foundation or concealer. Whether it is liquid, cream or a powder texture, buildable and blendable formulas that sit pretty on the face are perfect to avoid a rapid case of a clown face. Unless you’re going for that look in which case… then why are you here learning how to be naturally pretty artificially? We may not be achieving a clown style paint, but at least clowns know to cover what they actually look like. We want rosy cheeks but not your actual rosy cheeks, they need to be covered with correctly applied blush. Either apply near where you have contoured to complete the Neapolitan ice cream dream or on the apples for a youthful ‘of course I don’t drink on a Wednesday night, I start in the afternoon’ appearance. The ‘r’ in ‘rosy’ stands for rosacea! Step 8: Brows Beautiful babes have bushy brows. They are luscious, feathery yet structured. Excellent eyebrows help frame your potentially dull eyes and even duller soul. They must be bursting to the brim with full and fine hairs that are perfectly placed like a field of wheat gracefully bending to the whim of the wind. Sparse brows must be colored-in with hair-like strokes to achieve a defined yet contrastingly soft shape; otherwise, the wheat field fantasy can not be achieved. The appearance of big brows are paramount but let’s not get carried away; if you have brows that grow beyond the desired shape or — heaven forbid — crawl into the unruly unibrow territory, then the werewolf must be tamed! We want brows with lots of hair but not so much so that people become aware that body hair exists on every body part and not just the pretty places. For your beauty to be proper, you must prickly pluck at putrid brows that may attempt to escape from the frame you wish to create. Herd in the hairs with tweezers and a spoolie. The ‘u’ in ‘unibrow’ stands for unkempt! Step 9: Eyes Like the wings of a raven, your lashes must rise to great lengths and take flight! Fluttery or spidery, your eyelashes must be big, black and bold. Use mascaras with suspiciously large and girthy wands, or adhere lashes with glue to the very sensitive eye area, for a sultry winged-out effect that make any bird jealous of the way you can flap your eyelids. When it comes to eyeshadow and liner, nothing is more trendy than the fox eye; this is achieved by applying products close to the lash lines and smudged in an upward diagonal that mimics monolids, which are frequently mocked and ridiculed… It’s nothing to take seriously since it’s just a trend and just makeup. It’s not like it highlights the hypocrisy that eyes that slant upwards are only palatable and pretty to non-Asians on non-Asians. Neutral and brown tones are the most wearable to achieve this effect and smoke out. The ‘l’ in ‘liner’ stands for creative leeway! Step 10: Lips And now the final step is lips! So, sometimes it is unfortunate to be peasant poor and not have the resources to afford filler for two plush petals for lips, so we’ll settle for lip liner and plumping glosses that burn at chapped lips and cracked self-esteem. For the most realistic appearance of bigger lips, use lip products that are in the nude family. Make sure to get into the corners of the lip and overline the outer rim of your lips to make your pout protrude like a puckering duckbill. When it comes to lips they need to be obviously enlarged; how are people going to kiss you if they can’t even use Google Maps to track the location of your tiny mouth? Overlining your lips and topping it off with a shellac layer of gloss is equivalent to the ending sentiments of a holistic ritual; the closer you are to a blow-up doll, the closer to God. The ‘f' in 'full' stands for filler! And that is the final look. I think it went pretty well; we had some moments where I wasn’t sure where it was going but all-in-all it went pretty well and I REALLY like the final outcome — you’re less ugly! When following this tutorial, you successfully erase any trace of your factual facial features and transform into a beautiful person. You can temporarily fantasize that you are not ugly until the magic disappears with makeup removal. Don’t forget to share this with your friends, family, enemies and dogs (the latter two synonymous and interchangeable) so they too can learn some handy tips because I don’t need to look at them to know they need one or… all things changed about them so they’re actually pretty. If you were following along (like you should have been) please post it on Instagram or Twitter and tag me with the hashtag #NoUglyIn10 so I see all your wonderful recreations. Of course, it won’t truly fulfil the empty cavern of shallow validation the same way dimethicone can fill your pores, but you should have taken a good few hours and card transactions to give it your best try. Thank you again SO MUCH for watching remember to follow me on all my social media and I shall see you in the next tutorial. The ‘b’ in ‘beauty’ stands for byeeeee! Cover Photo Source: The Mitten Kitten Blog

hi grandma. i hate that feeling when you have a pit in your stomach and the world is staring at you extremely intently because you just made a small –– but significant –– mistake. i’ve been feeling this way a lot lately. you know this, but i forgot to wish you a happy birthday. it’s funny interesting since i overheard my dad calling you to wish you a happy birthday, and i wondered to myself if i should join in or pretend i didn’t hear. i didn’t say anything at all. is that what our relationship is like? sometimes, i don’t know whether the way i feel about you is made up of the animosity from my mother or the forgiveness from my father. i’ve heard so much about you like a celebrity in the news, and there’s so many things people have to say about you. i genuinely don’t know what to believe. i’ve been thinking a lot about how much i don’t really know you, grandma. you know so much about me: my academic endeavors, achievements, music taste but i can’t pinpoint much about you. except for how much you love taiwanese dramas. and i keep asking myself if this is how it’s gonna end. without regret. i miss you. but at the same time i don’t know how much i mean it or how much i really understand it. perhaps it’s just me. i hope you’re doing well. sending love, your granddaughter Editors: Emily X., Joyce S., Nikki Cover Photo Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/L4nwL3195U0

The world feels foggy these days Bleary and blurry and never enough sleep or clarity Like a candle with two wicks I burn from both ends Lit aflame, I glow in golds and yellows— I jolt. Startled awake Drool on the cusp of my mouth My heart seizes in my chest Stuttering in the beats after two or Three hours of sleep There’s a beat inside my head A pitter-patter against my skull It pulses and pounds like rain against glass I can’t sleep. I’m asleep. My eyelids feel too heavy My chest feels too tight There’s cotton in my head … Here I fall asleep. Here the candle melts. Wax pools into oil The world is lit aflame Blurry and bleary and Buried in its afterglow As a senior who is applying to colleges, academics and extracurriculars have felt incredibly overwhelming lately. I’ve been sleeping late and waking up early— – burning the candle at both ends, so to speak. Some days the lack of sleep is palpable. I can feel it in the heaviness of my eyelids and the thrum of a heartbeat in my skull. I wanted to write a poem that illustrates this. Cover Photo Source: https://www.deviantart.com/ramblingrhubarb/art/Staying-up-late-to-read-62-365-776576761

I come home to apples with a word on them. Mother slices it in half. She hands me the word-part-- fu. I eat the word, whole, slowly biting the juicy radical, swallowing smoothly, but choking on the dry phonetic. Mother nods, knowing I can’t move my mouth the way she does, so she lightly pats my back. She silently crunches through her half, bruised insides, wordless words stuck in between each hollow crevice. I take a breath, hastily dive into crispy firm skin, juicy young flesh, leaving me, full and her, empty. fu: 福, meaning prosperity, good-fortune, blessing The inspiration for this piece came from an apple in Karen Zheng's house that was stamped with the word: 福. From that, Karen explores the language barriers between her and her mother, morphing it with the act of ingesting the word.

The dust is orange enough to be beautiful. She tells herself she is scrubbing out sunshine when the dust spills out of her hair under shower water. The air holds itself smooth, curves up like a ripe, promising mango. Remarkable- the color of the sky is gentle enough to set even the crows dreaming. When she walks home, she counts the number of people who share features with her. Her grandmother once told her the ocean and the sky were brothers, same disposition, made for the same purpose, God smiled, grabbed the biggest paintbrush he could find, painted BLUE. At night, an orchestra assembles below her bedroom window. In the key of listlessness, the insects play their hearts out. She wanders at night. Lahore looks at her with one heavy-lidded eye, huffs a deep puff of air, rolls over, falls back asleep, snoring giant. "In Lahore, Pakistan" explores the feeling of being enchanted by the beauty of a country around you, but also feeling disconnected from it. I wrote this, thinking about how I felt when I went to Pakistan for the first time. Biography: Kiran Masroor is a sophomore at Yale University where she’s majoring in Neuroscience. On campus, she is in the performance group, TEETH Slam Poets, and she greatly enjoys writing about her Pakistani culture. ​​​​​​​She also runs a poetry account where she explores the intersection of written word, musical, and visual arts (@poemsbykiran).

if these words were to fill the void of the lost blood and frightened children, this poem are the souls of those who were too scared to speak up “go back to where you came from” cuts our throats leaves us in an alley so dark, where does the flashlight guide if we no longer want to go home the world consumed us and threw us up on the ground with our bodies limp, our souls soared into the sky and begged for the hands of others yet, we were left there, to die. Biography: Calista Ogburn is a Korean and Vietnamese American college student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County studying Public Health with a minor in Asian Studies. She has studied at International high schools overseas which has given her a global perspective. She relates her poems with women about identity and gender oppression, body image issues, and building the foundation of self-worth. To read more about the author and her poetry, visit: www.calista-ogburn.com.

fleets of inquisition hurl osier baskets of woven sacrilege on our shores— alas! in bungalow rifts, sniffing the talc that you feed me, you set my skin ablaze. from your ivory lips drip pride, from ours: shame. we all burn under the same scorching sun, we all bleed blood of the same hue, but what happened to our kinship, brother? do not travesty me. from my golden lotus feet, backed against the silent willow, i stand, arms open. still here. eurocentrism is quaint. This piece connects to the century of humiliation and the opium wars. While it reveals such dark times in Chinese history, this poem is about reclamation and Asian American pride, for we are "still here." Biography: Amy Liu is a 16-year-old poet based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who is passionate about leading social activism via print and braille poetry. Her work has been featured by Her Culture, National Braille Press, and more. You can find her on instagram at @amyyliuu.

America doesn’t smell like this, was my first thought coming back after seven years, seven years inking myself redwhiteblue. Cigarette butts fill the gaps between pavement, diseased daisies in this industrial meadow. Enter here: Follow the familiar curve of your grandmother’s eyelid to your own, kiss her gentle brow, kiss hands that pucker from monsoons of acid past. If her love is the bowls of fruit on your nightstand, half past eight, or cold jade pressed into palm, you must know that it is love, all the same. Mandarin may sometimes feel like sandpaper against skin, and niceties slip through the cracks that seem to show over and over in quiet places. Your memory will be quite selective—you will remember the conversations that flited between yellowed walls: How sad it is that she has an accent. You can trace stitched satin in the damask that flowers across your pillow, under your sheets. You will feel as though it is all in vain, this trying, all this trying, but you must try to see this wrinkled love. Xiǎo gū niang, little princess, little girl, you must yell. You must grow like the zhǎng that lingers on your mother’s tongue. "An Abecedarian for Szechuan" explores the bittersweet relationship between immigrant and homeland, and the generational burden that this bond carries. Biography: Sabrina Mei is a junior at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, MD. Her work has previously been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, John Hopkins University, Montpelier Arts Center, and the Yellow Barn Studio. In her spare time, she enjoys rereading Sherlock Holmes and watching an objectively excessive amount of cooking videos. You can find her on instagram @s.abrinamei.

bà ba wanted to write stories do you think he is doing this for himself glass marbles quiver still a grasshopper's leg could break its calm how her small frame bears the strength of blackened teeth that tear at bone stained with foreign blood blessed in foreign blood i hide the traces etched in me too well mandarin stumbles off my tongue like an apology i am sorry this Dream has skinned away the parts of you that are not in me i didn’t know my father used to write stories i can’t read his words pared by cold blade lost in a chasm of unspoken truths and road trip silences i think of peppers that hang above the kitchen doorway crescent moons dipped in chili oil how long have they been there i watch them search for home in sterile supermarket aisles everything has been for you "car ride with my mother" observes the fragile thread that strings first-generation immigrants to their children, and the painful weight of sacrifice that will linger in generations to come. Biography: Sabrina Mei is a junior at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, MD. Her work has previously been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, John Hopkins University, Montpelier Arts Center, and the Yellow Barn Studio. In her spare time, she enjoys rereading Sherlock Holmes and watching an objectively excessive amount of cooking videos. You can find her on instagram @s.abrinamei.