REDEFINING REJECTION
Rejection does not take away from the beauty of creativity.
she's alive and her tears are too. an extension of her agony, a throbbing ache welling to the surface.
Miriam Reichenberg
Nights lay their shadows
on your chest and weep, finding a
ready ear in you.
Oskar Leonard
she's alive and her tears are too. an extension of her agony, a throbbing ache welling to the surface.
Miriam Reichenberg
i call you via umbilical cord
mum, i cannot do this anymore
mum, what fabric softener do i use
(to fix my career relationship identity life)?
–
mum?
.
.
.
if i’m washed too hot will i shrink like my favourite sweater?
Murielle Mueller
Lie me in the crook of your arm
And let me hibernate by the flickering light
Thaw this cold heart by the fire
And let the black ice melt off
​
Ashley Pearson
Amphorous lava filled the basement
Oh, angels leave me,
Oh devil get on board
Sonorous screams
Oh angels forget me
Devil, come heal me
Stepping on blazing fire
Humans what a glee
Smoke emerging from the sea
Acid tearing me
Decrepit, leech sucking scarlet
Samina Parveen
My best friend is distances. I don’t want him to fall for it. Could he just stay like the ink spots on my uniform forever?
30 minutes left to die
I would have a bar of chocolate. Who body shames corpses.
Samina Parveen
Her palm was a guide
lightning bugs stitched in the stars
Claire Koening
Inside, my heart is dying,
I can feel it reel me to the lines of death
Like a star about to go supernova,
I'm finally waiting to crack
Sarah Chaudhry
See, that is what you don’t know when you walk past that abandoned, stunning house. There are cobwebs and broken light fixtures. There is no furniture or any reminiscence of human life. The outside is stunning, but the inside is dark, empty, and mysterious, lacking all of the small objects that are needed to make a house a home.
Ali Fishman
She looked up to the sky, on a seat that was not a throne and sighed. It was colder than she thought.
Jessica Wang
I glanced a traveller from an antique land, The Maharaja of Maryhill,
escorted to the back of the shop for failing to foot the bill.
For a jumped up wean’s first impropriety at the till
There’s a slap on the wrist and a heart unstill.
Rory Mullen
A knife, fiercely sharp like her majestic mind.
Her wrist, delicately fragile like her heart; hideously blind.
She hears the sirens of her heart,
Her veins bleed ink, and everything falls apart.
Farzeen Rashid, from the poem "Anonymous Grief"
Angel?
They tell each other, in mutters and whispers
That you are just a misguided angel
(I’ve lost my halo)
But the Bible calls misguided angels the devil
Are you the devil?
(They all murmur Lucifer)
Antara Choudhary
Summer-Â full of charm, passion like a lava, helping, giving, fiercely out there believing in us, was I, while he
was the winter - biting, breezy, stormy, cold, foggy and gray.
The reason for my suffering was summer clothes during winter nights until one day when another woman named Rain came in the form of an exam and separated us apart!
All I was left with was my summer self and hurt.
Bhakti Mukhi
freckles, out of place in the misery
we loved and called the city
that drenched, miserable paradise.
Oskar Leonard
That night as we both sat on the cold floor of the balcony, looking at the stars, smoking a cigarette each, I realised a lot of things and I was sure mom did too. There was something I was born with, something underneath the flawless, white skin for sale in the shops of the Rainbow mall, underneath the flesh and blood; that is my identity, my own perception of who I was. I didn’t know that yet, but dad would be back soon, out on mercy and we would again try to be normal, whatever that meant.Â
But needless to say, we would soon go back to what we wanted to be. Soon, we would live our lives, waiting for something to happen, not giving up, embracing our little acts of defiance.
Ramyani Bhattacharya, from the story "For Sale"
ice chips gravitate to her like icarus to the upending sky, some relief from the agony of the miracle of life /
a lover stands by, patient as the rain clouds in summer, grasps her sweat-riddled fingers- perhaps it is a fever dream
Anoushka Kumar, from the poem "inbuilt/the pains of womanhood"
i look in your eyes
you look in mine
and time gets frozen
in shiny glass bottles of perfume
to be cherished
one drop at a time
~
Like cut-outs
from old, musty newspapers,
glued together
in a cheap collage.
Like seven different songs,
playing all at once.
Like all the colours of a prism
mixed together to form a
pale, blurry white.
Family.
People I call family.
strangers I call friends.
A broken house I call
home.
Aadit Pahuja
I watch the hammer of your chest rise and fall
like the gavel deeming you not guilty of being in love with me
as you sleep in my bed,
next to me,
through a mid-afternoon nap.
Jacob Smith
Ruby lipstick spreads across your mouth like a sunset.
You spit fire across the horizon before it swallows you,
Ready to burn anyone.
Brooke Mitchell
She pictured the forests--
She heard the moonlit darkness call
Inside the darkness, she felt
She would have solitude and calm.
Tanvi Nagar
hunger. fire of nostalgia burning pit of my stomach,
whining. screams climbing up my throat, my hands
covering my mouth, drawing in my inaudible cries.
You locked me up for life; the cage is crumbling like
pieces of your face, sophisticated machines. I
dissolved my stardust into chamomile tea. beautiful
pain, i wish i was the one who took away your last
breath. beautiful pain
Samina Parveen
My prudence is built off of foolishness.
Jorge Romero Campos
Tossing ropes into water is useless
when there’s no one around to catch them.
Halle Preneta
I stand before him
and his stale air. Should I feel
remorse? Should I pray for his
day of heavenly resurrection?
Isabella Melians
My hard guitar case rests against my legs, decorated with peeling stickers. The pads of my fingers are still raw and flaky from the months I spent playing my Yamaha acoustic while staring at blank walls, drowning it all out, trying not to explode or cave in. Remnants of my long hair stay, probably permanent, in the chrome tuning pegs.
Sophie Kessler
There's chaos all around in the world. It's a competition rather of who does better and amidst reaching the peak, we leave our peace behind. So don't run, stop, grab your peace provider, do your thing and walk in the world where everyone around is running because unless you have mental peace, no running is benefitting. What do I do? I plug in my headphones and plug everyone around out. Where there's music, there's dancing, peace, listening, humming and singing no matter how good or bad your pitch is for singing along feels like someone's walking the same path and you're accompanied not alone. So let's pause the havoc by hitting the play button!
Bhakti Mukhi
We make bad jokes
And say "Just Kidding",
But we made good jokes
When we were kids;
It would make sense
If we say "Just Adulting".
Srishti Pandey
I am a creature of the water.
The ocean is my homeland
but it hurts me deeply to
witness it getting polluted
gradually. Each day is
supposed to be a new
beginning for creation but
instead it is becoming the
breeding ground for
destruction.
I see hundreds of plastics
floating around in the water
for days and I know they are
going to last for a lifetime,
slowly destroying my
homeland and poisoning my
dear marine friends.
If continued, my fellow
inhabitants will be no more.
My species will be no more. I
will be no more.
My homeland will soon be
converted into a deserted
barren burial ground.
I sighed.
The ocean will be no more.
Prarona Roy
I'm much more paranoid now
Four years ago, I would have
slid down the steep slide
without a second glance,
But now–
Now, every possible bad
outcome
They come to mind
I could break my neck
Dislocate my hip
I could die.
​
So if someone asks me why
I don't slide at the park
anymore,
I'll tell them,
I grew up.
Saanvi Sundaram
Words would hurt me. They
would be little things, not
much, all it had to do was
get to me. The shield I built
wouldn’t be strong enough to
push back the pains and
aches of the word weapons
that were thrown my way.
Sometimes it would hurt so
badly.
SaraJane Devereaux
I cry when my mother holds me as she's pushing me away.
Maisie Cu
Patriotism is a cheap and
vulgar word
and to dig trenches a worse
fate.
Tonight it is a star-drenched
night still.
Daniel Liu
and with my mind i make my tears flow in
retrograde, make the glass bottle drift backwards to where
i remember it. wondering, can dead stars come back to life?
remember: you were not moon-kissed, but star-crossed.
Kayleigh Sim
yes, i swallow broken english like stardust & choke on my own mother tongue, drown myself in the cosmos of the star spangled banner-- this place has so much longing.
Kayleigh Sim
If only life could be as it is in my dreams. Society isn’t there yet, but Inshallah (God willing) it will be soon.
Nafeesa Hoda
She stands then, a girl in a dead town, wanting to live.
​
The world is drenched in blue, silent except for the sound of a girl racing against time.
​
It’s an unfamiliar scene. The barren streets are washed in an aegean glow under the light of the half-masked moon.
Vanita Shih
in winter bones, we found ourselves together.
Emma Geller
my heart splintered everytime you
appeared.
you’d promise to rebuild it,
then flee,
destroying it yet again.
and why did i keep letting you in?
because it was you.
you.
my heart was always yours to throw
away anyhow.
Myesha Phukan
as the floor leaves us, my glorious
sinner,
I let another prayer go unanswered
as if I had the power to fulfill it in the
first place.
Emily Rae Mahon
"While it is true that I have called you what you are, a Wanderer, I have not called you what you have always been, nor have I any name to remember this tale by," said Miz Yyadri as she turned to stare up to the Wanderer, whose eyes could not be met, for there were none. "
​
To share with you my name would be an impossibility." A statement of depth, "Miz Yyadri, a name I have not, I beg pardon that you forgive me for correcting you; I am not born of the Txnkanzho."
The sky seemed to dim. The nameless planet feared the words of the memory, of what would fall from the Wanderer's mouth.
Caleb Sa
Here I am, hiding in the rain again,
Sitting here ‘till the rain stops,
'The End.'
MJD Deetzy
Until the next dreams blossom,
The remains of childish dreams were
painted in the northern night sky.
Trisha Das
i may see the beauty that is shared but
you can never duplicate the real feeling of
fear but elation and openness all swirled
together in the most beautiful galaxy of
memories. you can never duplicate a
perfect city for an imperfect girl.
Rachel Miller
How gut wrenching it seems when the
blood beneath your veins wants to scream
but it’s voiceless,
Helpless it lies there unattended
Aahna Vashistha
the stars would go blind
before i forgot you
Ryan Hutcherson
tongue filled with silt, I scrape
the bottom of the world. it knows
everything. so I ask it
about the secrets hidden in my bones:
they are not for me to know.
Ainsley Kennedy
Our doc now sunken completely
My feet far down into the abyss
Didn’t foresee a majesty
leave me in such a tragedy
Please don’t leave me here like this.
Casey Law
We are people of summer. We live in the sun’s scorching scrutiny, and winter comes as welcome shade.
Anuva Chowdhury
How long before I let go of this pain?
How long before I’m another empty vessel
that’s screaming out your name?
Lizbeth D'souza
A white flower bloomed
In remembrance; Slowly, sadly
They named it
Lily of the valley
At times it’d appear
She could fly
But one’s born to stay on ground
Can never soar that high
Bareen Aziz
i want to believe when the church billboard commands me to p r ay. next door, the gas station light flickers, spells out HELL instead of SHELL.
Miceala Morano
Give me hope for this forest yet,
do not succumb to the rolling rage of the fire,
seek the clear air, higher ground, the mountains
with their snow-dusted crystals, let them
teach you to cradle the fragments, fractured flakes,
without burning the ice into thin blades of steam.