Writing
Category
Jamie Dihiansan and Chicago Graffiti
by Erik Matsunaga
The first time you hit a real wall, not a practice spot, you get this rush. Like, “I shouldn’t be doing this.” Especially when you’re running along the El tracks and there’s the third rail, a train might be coming, and you gotta jump onto a roof. It’s a thrill, and even more thrilling when you paint something and get to see it from the train the next day. – Jamie Dihiansan, aka MENS
Watch Me
An Essay
by Jason Poole
Gramma? Can Uncle Jason take us down to the bridge to go swimming?
Your voice rang through the little wooden house with tin roof; over the grownups who sighed and stood with their arms and legs stretched away from their bodies to keep from sticking to each other; over the sound of the chickens and roosters making a ruckus outside.
Our Time
A Short Story
by Chris Ike
Squid is at the vending machine. I can see him out of the corner of my eye. I hear the machine go through its series of clicks and whines, and drop a bottle in to the receiving tray. I’m in the corner of the gym jumping rope. My sweat is working its way down my face as the rope whirrs rhythmically around and around, slapping the floor…
Quiet Nights
Fiction
by Sapna Kumar
I wake to the whistling sound of a bus going past my home. My clock says 7:25. When I check, the alarm is set for PM, instead of AM. Now I’ll have to walk in late to school with my brother. He always oversleeps, and I never do.
We don’t have enough money to put the heat on too high, so I sleep under tons of blankets. School’s been canceled a lot this winter. It’s always cold in Cleveland. I wish I could stay in bed forever….
The Story and Sylvia
Fiction
by Rammel Chan
Naturally, when she returned to the United States, Sylvia’s go-to topic of conversation was her two month study-abroad to Cape Town, South Africa. Once inquisitive friends and family would even touch upon the subject, the flood-gates would open and all other topics of conversation would cease to exist. They listened politely, sipping at the ice in empty water glasses in restaurants or living rooms or coffee shops in Oak Park, with nods and forced smiles, to what young Sylvia had done on her study-abroad trip….
My Life of Sin
Nonfiction
by Eduardo Cruz Eusebio
…Don’t ask me what the communal outhouses were like. Okay, I have to tell you. Picture a six-foot deep slit trench with a long wooden building pulled over it. In that building hang a dim 20-watt bulb above a long bench with a missing rear board. Where the board is missing, you hang your ass over the fetid darkness, and let it fly into the abyss. Shitting in the darkness, shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers of the Lord, the bench shaking with the exertion of a dozen men and boys, is a dear memory that will never leave me, despite years of hypnosis and therapy….
Going Back to Where I Came From
A Poem by Anuja Ghimire
I’ve given her blood poems
Her pale hands return them, dried
I’ve offered her my young dreams
Sometimes, standing in three feet of snow
With open eyes, when the heat burns holes in the sky
Fifteen years, I’ve carried water
What can I grow in a land that isn’t mine?….
pho hong phat ; or king pou’s kingdom.
A Poem by Noelle Marie Falcis
language rises like steam flying forth from kitchen, the cinnamon spiced vats of bone broth buoyant breezing weaving paths through seating . bodies are overflowing from booth to chair next to window blocking doors . when we approach , the bells chime until the gateways close ….
Illusions of Next Time
An Essay
by PJ Temple
“Dad, I think it’s a good time for me to start looking for an apartment. I’m almost twenty. I need to be more independent.”
“Oh no. Vy move? You vill stay here until you get married. We don’t believe in moving, boving.”
He’s over-rhyming. The topic must have struck a chord for him. He might as well have said moving out is hocus pocus, a mythical idea reserved for spooky nights around campfires. He made the idea sound outlandish and revolutionary. I suppose it was, in his mind….
Part I. Coral / Part II. The Corral
A Poem by Ryan Nakano
Part I. Coral
Ahh, the coral
beauty sees the boy &
the boy breathes
thru jagged little gills diver boy dives deep into his back pocket
to pull out a piece of porcelain Made in
his memory begins before he was born
back when grandmother was a mermaid and
the reef he remembers belonged to the gill-less
sea
force of a wave
the tide of war once littered the beach & the boy
surfaces
combs the shore for shells
combs the shore for something to remember the kingdom….
My Own Brother
Essay
by Hui Tang
Father gifted me Chicago Bulls T-shirts and shorts for my birthday before I knew what a sports team was. In retaliation, Mother gave me a frilly pink dress. Truthfully, I loved the way I looked in the dress much more than the shirt and shorts, but I preferred the sports team outfit because I liked running, jumping, getting grubby. What child didn’t?….
Making ourselves at home
Essay
by Patti Kameya
Waiting for the #6 Jeffery Express to downtown Chicago.
Hey you. You with the white balding head, drab jacket, and gaze that glistens on contact with young Asian women. We need to talk to you, as well as the bystanders who look away as you slide up to us, lips dribbling tales of your backpacking adventures in China….
Holy Thursday
A new story
by M. Evelina Galang
From the collection in progress, “Strength is the Woman”
At night, curled next to her brothers on a cot just outside the kitchen, Soledad dreamed of aswang creeping out from under the beds of the house, feeding on the blood of Mrs. Mayor. The wife had eyes that glowed Jello-green, she schemed with all the witches, found ways to make Lola E’s life miserable. Soledad hated her. Soledad wished her dead. She opened all the windows wider, she invited the moon to come in and drink all the evil out of the house. She asked the angels to hover over Lola E. “She is old,” Soledad said in her dream. “She can’t fight for herself, and Mrs. Mayor is an aswang.”
Bonneville
A screenplay excerpt
by John Sun Lew
EXT. TOPAZ INTERNMENT CAMP, CENTRAL UTAH – DAY
TITLE CARD: Topaz Internment Camp, Central Utah, September, 1942
A convoy of busses approaches a dusty compound, ten football fields broad, containing a grid of 42 identical blocks of 12 tar-paper barracks. As their bus passes under the main arch, Danny looks through razor wire and guard towers in the fore to the snow-capped Mount Topaz.
EXT. TOPAZ – COMPOUND – DAY
Okinawans and Salt
A poem by Lee A. Tonouchi, Hawai’i’s own Pidgin Guérilla.
My Aunty Jane
loves for make
and eat
Okinawan food,
watch Okinawan programs,
and read all kine books about
Okinawa.
After Pulse
A poem by Mary Anne Mohanraj
His father said: he saw two men kissing
in the street, and it made him angry.
I was eighteen the first time I
spent the night with another girl,
walked back to campus with her
the next morning, wanting to hold
her hand, afraid to.
Cartel of Silence
An essay by Euree Kim
Nurse told me to be stripped naked.
I asked: Do you have my consent? What about my rights?
Nurse replied, I do not need your consent. You do not have rights.
Okinawans and Garlic
A poem by Lee A. Tonouchi, Hawai’i’s own Pidgin Guerrilla.
My grandma makes it
one habit
for carry cloves
of garlic
in her pants pocket.
In Okinawa, das how
she tell.
Supposed to be
so you no catch cold.
[X] Other
An essay by Danielle Tanimura
“What are you?”, not “How are you?”. As early as preschool, I thought that this was just how conversations were supposed to start. This is normal. This is fine.
Seeking Refuge
An essay by Mary Grace Bertulfo
“’One is one’s own refuge, who else could be the refuge?’ said the Buddha.” – Walpola Rahula
Monday night. 6:10 p.m. Alone.
I drove down Lake Street in our worn, twelve-year old mini-van. Hot fury heaved in my chest and shoulders and transformed into a high-pitched scream that poured out of my throat for two whole blocks. I screamed until I had no more energy. I screamed until my voice was hoarse. Had I been a superhero, Wonder Woman say, the scream would have been a siren shattering every van window.
Chris Marker Says: “Love don’t love nobody.”
A poem by Paul Yamada
Prelude
It’s not just the lake and the park
it’s not about residence, no
or physical dwelling, abode
perturbations and back spasms
will follow you like perfume on
the tongue, shirt cuffs and pant legs
if there is nowhere to write here
is there somewhere, anywhere else?
Remember heritage, imagine identity, stop believing
by Co Shi An
I am not white. I have spent 29 years of life believing I was white. Now I’m realizing it. I’m not white. I am not white and I am also not Yellow. I am, however, Chinese, and Irish. Not white, not Yellow. Chinese and Irish.
I remember my Chinese name
An essay by Mengnan/Mary Wu in response to Co Shi An’s essay “Remember heritage, imagine identity, stop believing”
I remember my Chinese name. I remember when it was my only name.
My grandfather wanted a son. My grandmother gave birth to three daughters. Each daughter gave birth in the same year in Beijing. My mother, the middle daughter, was supposed to give birth to me in the middle of her two sisters. But I was 2 weeks overdue, and I broke the order of things. My two cousins were both born female before me, and I was the last hope for my grandfather.
earth dragon
A poem by heather c. lou