This summer I took some chances while listening to Chance the Rapper because I liked the beat

But listened to Kendrick when I wanted some street poetry

Some urban poetry

From poets who grew up in suburban towns with an urban state of mind

There once was a girl named Sarah

But no one knew her name.

“Loser!” the prissy, perfect girls screeched.

The word sang in her ears.

Silence.

i'll carry my fault to the sea and salt 

and i know it's dragging me along 

i wish i was more than a hollow frame 

riding through time on a tidal wave 

and i know i won't be here long 

They hold the spirit of Christmas, the Thanksgiving meal, the laughter, the family cheer, and the lost ones that we held near.  Every single Christmas, Thanksgiving, and family get together, my grandmother concocted the most delicious deviled eggs.

“People just choose to be pink, everyone is born blue.” “People with pink marks are going straight to hell.”

“There are places to go to get your pink mark made blue again, so why not go?” “These millennials with their pink marks.”

“Blue marks are the superior marks.” “Hello.”

Aria pointed at the little flower on her ankle with a short, chubby finger and asked her mother in her unpracticed, fragmented English about what it was. “Pretty,” she said, her ‘r’ little too rounded and her voice broken up by her childish laughter.

I hate diaspora poetry

as much as the next

fed-up immigrant

All that bullshit

about “lives stained

with honey and turmeric”

and “the colonizer

cutting my tongue with

aluminum shears”

is utterly boring

The night before my first day of sixth grade, I studied the piece of fabric laid out on my bed with uncharacteristic placidity. It was no work of art; plain cotton fabric, dyed black, with a single strip of black lace for adornment.

When I needed a white sheet for Toga day at school, my father immediately gave me his own white cloth. The weave was loose and rough, with a smooth strip of gold running down one side, so large I thought it was a sari.

Fidgeting my leg against a familiar school desk, the dreadful anticipation always washes over me while listening to roll call on the first day of school.

Someone’s skin tells a more powerful story than that person can, more often than not. Marbled skin stretched flawlessly over tight muscles and thin bones, rough skin piled over fleshy arms and tree trunk-like skeletons.

Once I was through the door, I dashed down the stairs to my room, flinging myself onto my bed, sobbing. I felt so stupid, so clutzy, so worthless. Questions flooded my mind. Who am I? Am I really Amy? Or am I someone else? I didn’t know anymore.

Knock-knock-knock.

I sit on the roof of the building, my legs dangling off the edge. It would be so easy to just lean forward a bit. To finally be free from my life. I consider the idea for a moment, and almost decide to do it and take my freedom, when I hear footsteps behind me. 

Names. Titles given to us at birth by someone with no idea of who we are or what we'll become, they are iron-clad chains bound to our lifetimes by those who want us to be something great.

His taste in music was mayonnaise: bland and unappreciated by most of the population. I guess you could say I love mayonnaise. We attended the same school, but a year separated us so we didn’t have any classes together.

There are occasions where I zone out, and during this period of deep thought, I find myself staring at a girl. I’ve seen this girl multiple times before.

Day and night become irrelevant 

Time is no longer marked by the movement of the sun

But rather the hours passed in front of a screen

iconic narcotic, cut it with a straight edge, that’s ironic, feelings are chronic, brought without logic, she broke in with a lock pick, to purify the toxic, joint sockets, fill his deep pockets, talk to him, but change the topic

The day Reason was guillotined

in the kingdom known as my mind,

his head flung into the murky sea of oblivion, 

Cruelty became my god.

lace up your sneakers and roll up your jeans: your jeans 

are blue and worn in the knees because they’re your favorite

and the laces on your sneakers used to be white but now 

they are tinted brown from the dirt of the earth you walk through.

To my vocal chords ring

WISHIN’

That you could be me

You fall for me like Autumn leaves

I am pollen in the Spring

You love me, but I am your allergy

Last week I found my friend’s fake ID’s

One form Towson, Maryland, where she is 23

One form an address in Scottsdale, Arizona

Each card different, each with a new persona

oh my gosh what song is this

oh my god is it that song

that song i first heard

god it must have been the summer before middle school

listen to those horns

it must have been npr’s all songs considered

My brain likes to run amuck.    

Some days it gets stuck on the same thought:

You are in love with someone and they do not love you.

You ate too much today and are now chubby, too chubby in fact to be loved by anybody.

The streets,

full of people rushing to and fro.

Stepping on the paved concrete,

wearing it out slowly,

like nothing.

Night spreads through,

covering everything,

like a blanket.

The wind breezes past

50% Polish, 50% Russian 

I thought.

It all changed in Rehovot.

I flipped through the book.

The dining table crowded with voices.

“Tracing our roots” He said

Turning the page.

The faces of those like me 

Pakistan and America 

Eastern and western

but they feel like the north and south poles

I’m immersed in the red silk dresses embroidered by hand and I’m in love with the ability to roam alone across this land

Unsure.

About the question, or the world?

Unsure whether to answer truthfully, or to fabricate a more intriguing narrative.

Unsure what the question implies: Fears,

(Spiders, bad grades, falling out of love)

Bounty brand paper towels; you know it by name

“The quick picker upper”, thirst pockets

Outnumbering the leading brands not only in price

But in absorbency

Who would have thought that a simple household object

I am the center of the universe

My problems are complex

My thoughts are intricate, my experiences unique

Surely no one else can live this way?

What a cruel realization it is

Such a curious paradox of existence