A weathered penny lay in a blue transparent case on a well-organized shelf, surrounded by books and little knick-knacks. Its edges were worn, its engravings almost erased by years of hardship. This coin was once proudly minted in 1873 with a flying eagle printed on one side.
The coin’s journey began by passing from hand to hand, pocket to pocket, its shiny surface dulled by countless dealings with machines. One dark day the life of the penny took a tragic turn. It was a cold winter evening when its owner dropped it out of their pocket on New York City Street—forgotten and kicked around by bike wheels, bottoms of shoes, and dog paws.
Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months as the penny lay among the dirt and filth of the ground.…
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Wanderlust
I used to catch falling stars and set them adrift at sea
I formed constellations out of moon dust and traced galaxies into the sand
Waves crested and crashed, and sea foam swirled around my feet
And in the water, I saw the universe inviting me to dive in
Crave
I can still taste your honey on my lips,
your caressing tongue, bitter and pollen-laced.
Whispering bees brush velvet cheeks,
releasing saccharine nectar that floods a willing throat,
savoring your honey
– aelily
Author’s Note: I was born on a sinking island and named after a star. “Wanderlust”’s focus on escapism is a reflection on my wishes to travel and explore. It is also an ode to my mental health struggles—depression, anxiety, and PTSD.…
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“Mama,” Esther sang. “Guess who I saw riding up the road.” Her good eye held a tell-tale sparkle.
“Stop, you,” Jane replied. To cover her discomfort, she took up her towel and whipped it lightly toward her daughter.
Esther laughed—a girl’s giggle with a woman’s knowing. She’d refused braids that morning and the strong springtime winds rushing into Iowa had knotted her hair. She plucked her best embroidered eyepatch and a brown bonnet from the hook by the door, then actually smoothed her hands down her workday skirt before rushing outside, presumably to meet the man—Mr. Isaiah Hall—in nothing more wicked than bare feet and best intentions.
Jane forced her hands to fold the towel and place it neatly on the table. “Oh, Morris,” she whispered.…
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Kalpana was sweating.
She could feel a bead of moisture trickle slowly down her lower back as she watched all the
other kids in her class scribbling furiously, filling up their papers with glorious tales of what they did on their summer vacations.
Her own paper lay on her desk, a pristine white canvas untouched by ink.
What could I possibly write about, she fretted, her panic increasing by the second as she watched the timer on the board count down. Kalpana could tell that Mrs. Campbell was the kind of
teacher who would make them all share what they had written, which would be pretty hard to do with nothing but empty space on her paper.
Not for the first time, Kalpana cursed her family’s rotten luck.…
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I get this way, this time of year.
Light begins to shift and I will notice
………………that wheel turning.
Cicadas whirring louder, they will know.
They beckon their own dying
………………soon to come.
Come back, I ran ahead. The sunlight is still bold
and I see blue sky through the haze of heavy air and
………………brave cicadas. They leave their little shells some years,
carapaces rattling on the tree trunks. Less than corpses,
………………more than ghosts. I’ve plucked their wings of cellophane
to make my art, scavenged from the undead
who are gone to other places underground
………………to wait for seven years. Late summer is the worst part
of the southern year, when I turn older and begin to welcome dying
vines and fleeing birds and memories of school and change and
wood-smoke, bonfires, sweaters.…
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“Speed up, or the next thing you know, you’ll have a hole blown up in your head,” the soldier threatened.
Rocks scraping at my bare feet, I scrambled up the almost non-existent track. All the while, I thought about how I could so naturally understand the Japanese words that he said. The realization clawed at my heart.
“I don’t know why I had to bring him along. Doesn’t seem much use anyway. Might as well kill him instead,” I heard him grumble.
Well, he might’ve not known, but I knew the reason why I was being brought along. The fact that I used to climb up the little mountain next to our village every morning, easily made me the best person to know the way up the maze-like forest of the mountain.…
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My two brothers share a bedroom in the middle of the hallway. I share a room with my sister down at the end, across from my mom and stepdad’s room.
My sister and I share one full-sized bed that’s pushed right up next to the window. I sleep on the window side. On the wall across from my sister’s side is a big mirror and when we jump on the bed, we watch ourselves in it.
Laughing.
Floating.
Hung up by a nail next to the mirror, right by the door frame, there’s a small, pink porcelain Lord’s Prayer wall plaque. It has dark pink and blue flowers in each of the rounded corners and the prayer is printed in fancy writing in the center.
Every night I clasp my hands underneath my chin and recite the prayer in my head as I kick my sister’s cold feet away.…
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