Leaving My Childhood Home
By Zeina AzzamOn our last day in Beirut
with my ten years packed in a suitcase,
my best friend asked for a keepsake.
I found a little tin box
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Bandits
By Hala AlyanYou were mama’s; first and only boy, sable eyelashes long as an ostrich. Operatic, I claimed baba, his books and his sulk, first of the unrequited loves. What we took we took unasked.
The Love for My Culture
By Elexia AlleyneMaybe it’s the Spanish running through my veins
That’s the only way I know how to explain it
Maybe it’s the r’s rrrolling off my tongue
See,
WITNESS
By Ariana Brownyou said you held a gun first / then a girl / & both begged for mercy / & you are afraid / of your own
body / of the hands that are their own haunting / the coal / bursting through / your glowing skin / black
Angelitos Negros
By Darrel Alejandro HolnesIn the film, both parents are Mexicans as white as
a Gitano’s bolero sung by an indigena accompanied by the Moor’s guitar
bleached by this American continent’s celluloid in 1948
when in America the world’s colors were polarized into black & blanco.
Self Portrait with NeoNazi Demonstration
By Lauren K. AlleyneJust like that the day is black
and blue, bruised with hate.
Just like that my skin, black
as fine leather stretches so tight
13 Hours in the Future
By Caits MeissnerI am 13 hours in the future & it is night / the rain is holding her breath
my friend, isn’t Penang opening to us! / a lotus unveiling a carnival
the paper lanterns are skirts / or balls pushed along by tiger’s nose
our smoke is a canon / dare devil on its way to an unnamed star
america
By Fatimah Asgharam I not your baby?
brown & not allowed
my own language?
my teeth pulled
The Mind in State
By Fady JoudahDoes consciousness exist only when
you name it? Was the double helix a
stranger, the nucleus the first brain?
I feel therefore I am. This is more
Til the Taste of Free in Our Mouths (Brown Baby Lullaby)
By Heidi Andrea Restrepo RhodesWake. Wake.
These the nights we sing. These the folds,
unborn reverie, ambition marbled mud & shine,
raging anthem born like diamonds out darkest ash & rain