KINTSUGI

Diya Cadambe

All they see are the fractures. The scraggly, twisting rifts in your body. They see Lichtenberg burns crackling along your being, unceasing and undying.

They say Franklin himself studied your lightning. I think so too. But not because of the jagged, endless crevices. I mean the spark in your eyes that rival any fraud key and kite experiment.

The fissures in your body should be studied by the greatest minds. But please, save the ones in your heart for me. Unlike them, I won’t scorn them, I won’t sneer in disdain at them. I won’t hide your imperfections.

I’ll make them like the rest of you.

Flawed. Beautiful. Breathtaking.

Imperfect. Jaw-dropping. Divine.

Liquid gold drips out of a cup onto your coffee skin. Emphasizing the cracks. Highlighting the fissures. Focusing on the fractures

The contrast of your skin and your perfect flaws make me gasp. You always have been beautiful, but I can’t take my eyes off you.

My eyes wander along the sparkling ruptures. I know you see them reflected in my eyes. I know you have to face them after all you’ve done to avoid it.

But I’m here.

I’m looking at your cracks.

I’m pouring the blood of the gods into them, to make you shine like the star you’ve always been.

Gleaming like glass. Shining like silver. Glistening like gold.

Cracked under pressure, but mended like kintsugi.

When You Left Me

Caroline

Stevens

Lying flat

Arms out wide

Embracing the warm breeze that falls upon me

Crickets chirping

Quiet winds whistling by Ocean waves still and mellow

I exhale

Relaxing my whole body, feeling each grain of sand pressing

Against my skin

Your laugh is like the summer rain

I so thoroughly enjoy

Pattering on my forehead

I don’t mind

I can hear the ocean waves crash softly

Washing in and out

Like the way new conversations arise between us

Sand all over

In my hair, between my toes

I don’t mind

I found a seashell

Pink and ridged

It echoed of such harmony and grace

Like you did before

Leaving me all alone, in a place I’ve never been before

You didn’t come back

I do mind

This time

Harvest

i squint over the lights, fluorescence haloing your head, and when my eyes slide shut, i see you smeared on the lids: you, eclipsing the sun. it seems so simple in your hands. while clothes split down sown lines, no easy seams were stitched on skin. but in quick flicks of silver — white light glancing, breath catching — you undo me. in glistening carmine lines — tugging the thread, peeling me out — my tangles unravel on the table, life fluttering under motion, touches skimming, unbruising. you're gentlest on your work.

Princess Ogiemwonyi

When writing this poem I tried to look at the moments and people in my life that taught me to love and no matter what I did I would always go back to one person my mom Because my momma always said baby love can solve everything and I never really believed her because honestly if love could solve everything why is there war and why are there people crying and dying and so much more and all she would do is smile and look down she would tell me baby I love you, my momma would always say baby love can move mountains so love big and I would always retort with if love is so powerful why can’t it make all pain go away and why can’t it make all parents stay and those times she would look down with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes and say baby child of mine I love you my mother always tells me to love myself she always says if you can’t love yourself no one else can except for me because I’m your mother and you’re stuck with me and I always try and listen but it is not always easy in a world that tells me I’m not its standard beauty and I know it might sound dumb but that stuff really gets to me but I try I wake up every day and tell myself I’m beautiful and worthy of any love I receive even on the worst days even when I don’t fully believe it I’m always astonished with the amount of love my mother seems to have I mean she is so full of love that she made it her last name and every time I ask her why her response is because there was a time in my life where I didn’t think I had any so I made it my last name now it will never leave me so it would always be with me and even though I’ve seen my mother cry and can only imagine the amount of pain she’s been through its always in those moments where she says isn’t love amazing doesn’t it just fill your soul doesn’t it make you want to sing and dance across the room and I can honestly say I’m not quite there yet but I try to be and so in those moments on those days I try to remember what my momma always told me.

If stories are plastic grocery bags, then my mind is the cabinet underneath our kitchen sink: positively crammed with them, yet, always collecting more.

Annie Hurley

Lillian Rubarts when i’m alone, i can see the stars. i close my eyes my lids forming a perfect circle until they crumple into each other that’s when my eyelashes slash through my cheeks like shurikens, muscles straining so my lids stay together, but they’re a proton and an electron they never want to be near each other, so it hurts. but my world doesn’t darken, oh no, it brightens. phosphors of gooey plasma obscure the blackness, amalgamating into lustrous clouds of colors mixing and melding together until they reach their brightest, thenthere, i can see them! the stars! they’re little dots dancing, laughing and radiating with joy like little lightning bugs playing tag. they want to join hands when they catch each other so that they can reach beyond this world and stay together forever, but it hurts. because they can’t quite reach each other’s hands yet, the stars glow even brighter. their light uncurls like fingers from a fist extending into a twirling diamond desperate to hold each other, becauseall they want is to be bonded together forever and be more than just a mere singularity but that’s unrealistic. there’s a certain beauty in them indulging in their fantasy but no matter how far they run, their light remains years apart from each other they’ll never make it, and it hurts. the colors contort into hideous shades of stormy grays then those clouds overtake all vision. the stars flicker like candles burning out, their dream was always ephemeral, after all. so they don’t try anymore. they turn away from each other escaping my eyes in the colors’ pouring rainfall dripping from my shurikens to dampen my cheeks. i open my eyes and i reenter a world of darkness. alone. it hurts.