“A ballad for messy brown girls” is the honourable mention of Room’s Poetry and Fiction Contest 2018 as selected by judge Vivek Shraya. Brown girls with combed out curls that frizz and fly and fuzz, Baby hair halos, - angels - of the 43 Kennedy bus.i Shorts that...
Aunt: f. from the Latin amita 1. small creatures that can carry more than their share 1.2 stand-in mothers (who can’t hold seventeen hours of labour over you) 2. photo filler used for major childhood moments: christenings, communions, etc. 3. antonym ex-aunts: members...
Everything’s late this year.
Nothing’s dissolved since my last visit to Waterloo—
an evening at the park staring at geese
and we took turns
pushing each other on swings,
pretending we were children.
Lisa, the most beautiful cousin, the 80s flip of dark blonde hair, shiny cotton candy lip gloss, tight striped sweater, squeezing 7-year-old me in that Polaroid, my wild curly ‘fro against her cheek, she had an even, radiant smile, while I was missing four teeth. With...
i wear my trauma like a badge over my heart an enamel pin that tells the world i have seen hell, and i am still here i wear my trauma like a badge over my heart an enamel pin that tells the world i have seen hell, and i am still here i have survived sometimes i am...
we sit the two of us you face the tv we sit the two of us you face the tv i take turns glancing at your face as i raise my bowl to drink the soup there are war torn cries from the screen not loud enough to disturb the silence between us the actress on that screen more...
your lips they twist perceptions in an instant. your lips they twist perceptions in an instant. my ink stained fingertips try to make sense of it and all the things you say, all the things you do you seem to forget. when i was younger you loved me because i had the...
I was ten when I first felt brave enough to say, "sometimes, I just feel like I want to go home... but I don't know where home is" I was ten when I first felt brave enough to say, "sometimes, I just feel like I want to go home . . . but I don't know where home is"...
Our 2017 Poetry Contest Honourable Mention. mother's tongue They often ask: Will you teach your children your language? As if it is a weapon I carry. Of course I will, ensure they are more fluent than I was. Hope that they can read and write it too....
She built a tower for herself. What a waste of sand, they all thought, and to not lower her hair down—who waits, in a desert, to be overcome She built a tower for herself. What a waste of sand, they all thought, and to not lower her hair down—who waits, in a desert,...