Writing is an act of resistance
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My Rape Wasn’t a Choice by Alberto Lau-Chang
Artist’s Statement I took this picture on May 14, 2022, in San Diego, California, during a Women’s March to protest the leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion that eventually overturned Roe v. Wade. More than four years later, the message the photograph conveys is still relevant. We all—men, women, and people who choose to identify…
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Lemonading
greed, Victoria Melekian, patriarchal capitalism, hunger, Poetry, environmental degradation, povertyBy Victoria Melekian America, greed is upstreamrivering unharnessed, fast splashing across our land uprooting centuriesof forest, marsh, and rocky outcrops. Greed is carving a frontier of gated wealth,leaving us a new map: river of hunger, river of despair, river of no mercy.America, greed is gilding the capitol. Kids down the street are raising moneyfor a…
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Letter to Self
menstruation, women’s worth, baby-making machine, feminine hygiene, Narrative nonfiction, misogyny, Joycelyn Zhang, creative nonfictionBy Joycelyn Zhang It was the day of your school’s 5K. Sweltering. You ran until your lungs wheezed. Your shorts were green, like everyone else’s, and together you were a forest from the waist down. You forced yourself to drink the sludgy fountain water and ignored the way it stung your convulsing throat. You ignored…
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Monarch
By Deanna Altomara A long time ago (or maybe not so long),your grandmothers boarded a ship across churning seas,Just as we took to the yawning sky,Full of dreams and haunted by a home that was no longer our own. We weren’t born to fly.In the darkness, we had no choice but tostart anew, to molt…
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transcription (i can’t play sport)
By olive bly they won’tforce me to fightin the war being transis a mentalillness, yes you can’tfight in the warif you’re ill i ammentally illso can’t war i wasterrible atsports in school onlyever reallyscored one goal & ’causesport & war arethe same thing i don’tthink i would begood at war olive bly (Tangata Tiriti, Pākehā)…
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On Viewing the Porn Trading Cards Catalogue (1925-2025)
By Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff Braid your hair. Pin your hair. Set your hair. Curl your hair. Spray your hair. Color your hair. Cut your hair. Blow your hair. Center your part. Left your part. Right your part. Lose your part. Cut your bangs. Flip your bangs. Feather your bangs. Grow your bangs. Pluck your brows.…
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If Only There Were No Trans Kids
From A Humanist Devotional By Mitch Roshannon If only there were no trans kidsor queers in public squaresthere could be peace in America. Somehow, the eradication of“Adam & Steve” will repair economiesunsustainable, tenuous, and fraught. Dad would stop hitting mom;steak and collard greens on the tablerather than cheap ramen and regret. God would return to…
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Silence
By Isla Laust I look downAnd see handsStained not with bloodBut with silence Isla Laust is a middle school English teacher in the United States. She primarily writes poems about her experiences as a teacher functioning within the education system. Her writing is fueled by watching her students and coworkers navigate current events and societal…
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Three Poems by Tushar Sen
The Last Tree Standing A lone banyan waitsto be cut down,until the block officer signsthe contractto his brother-in-lawin the timber business. Samples have been collected.A local student earned his thesisstudying the therapeutic effectsof any/every banyan tree. His brothers were uprootedfor godowns assembling ORGANIC vegetablesand factories mass-producing HERBAL remedies. “Too much land locked by treesthat produce…