Immortal Love

By Rachel - Ruth Santos

Time is what to us?

Decades? Centuries? Milleniums?

The amount of orbits in which you pass my way?

Distance, shedding pain

Like a meteor crashing,

Crushing itself into bits

Circling away,

Like paper caught

In a strong wind

Hoping only to shed

The light of my passion

That burns too hot for your icy soul

Wishing for you,

Not for the many moons

That circle the rings of Saturn

Still, you turn a shoulder

As cold as the heat

On Pluto

Desperate for you to see

I want no other galaxy

No moon of Mercury or Mars

Yet, you fear the craters

On the facade you show me

Are not beauty

Often my role is mistaken;

You are the star to my bleak

Yet raging surface

You see,

I could play on the rings of Saturn;

Venture through the splendid galaxies

But still,

I pull you to me,

for I’ll love you endlessly

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By Amal Khateeb

There are people who will try to mold

Be as tough as a rock so that they do not mistake you for clay

The stars hunger for your hair

That is why it sticks up so high

The night want to see yourself in it

Why do you think your skin is so dark

You are blood and bones and melanin and

hundreds of thousand of years of back breaking labor

You are the jungle

A forest of hair do not remove what has been made to reflect nature

You are the jungle in truest form

They’ll bend you, trying hard to make your spine dance the way they ask

They will try to curve you into the shape they desire

But your bones do not break so easily

You are made of more than mere calcium

You are thick brows and even thicker thighs

Stretch marks run like rings on Saturn

Your light comes from a far away place

It will be years before they see it.

Behind the Lens

By: AnnMarie Matel

As I grip the camera with clammy palms,

anxiety flows through my veins.

My feet kiss the verdant grass while

my imagination soars through chunks of white up above.

I fawn over the beauty of nature around me.

I sit and wait for the perfect shot.

Breezes begin to blow through my hair and the

Blue sky above my head retains an aura of tranquility.

But I tend to capture moments most when

bare patches of black appear in the atmosphere at night.

I close one eye and peek through the viewfinder,

illustrating an image just like Picasso or Da Vinci have done.

My index finger presses the shutter.

Many trails of light slowly enter the aperture.

A picture is worth a thousand words,

all of the words that I have trouble saying.

A Letter to My Younger Self

By: AnnMarie Matel

Dear Annie,

Right now,

you have reached a point in your life

where you’re living in a world of black and white,

with gray skies hovering over your head and

every once in a while, it will rain.

I know you feel like an outcast,

you don’t fit in anywhere.

Instead, you feel like a bomb,

ticking and ticking,

ready to explode at any moment.

But, trust me when I say this,

things will get easier over time.

Everything changes

and thoughts of the future scare you,

they always will.

However, learn to adapt to change

because in the position I am in now, it’s slightly difficult.

The smallest details in your life will change,

such as your favorite color and favorite food,

as well as what you aspire to be

and who you aspire to be.

Learn to be independent and

accept the fact that you are growing up and maturing.

Stop isolating yourself from the world,

let someone break down your walls,

one brick at a time

but be extremely careful on who you let inside,

for looks can be deceiving

and words can be misleading.

Do not throw yourself away because of

the desperation to fit in and feel loved.

Fall in love with someone you care for

with every single fiber of your being

instead of wasting your thoughts on a young boy who’s

intentions are not what they appear to be.

Find someone who shows you off to the world

and isn’t afraid or too shy to do so,

because you are beautiful and deserve to be treated like so

but above everything else,

learn to love yourself.

Society has raised you to please others,

but disregard their teachings and focus on mine.

Speak your mind by

doing what you desire to do

and not becoming one with the in-crowd.

Once you become comfortable in your own skin,

you will finally find the confidence

you were searching for all your life.

“She’s nobody.”

“She’s too quiet.”

Throw one finger up in the air,

for popularity and the idea of

being superior to one another don’t matter

and won’t matter once you enter the real world.

Avoid holding grudges,

they will end up eating you alive.

Express your thoughts

in the form of a poetry anthology

or a hard-hitting expose on all the people you’ve met,

all the battles you conquered,

all the lessons you’ve learned,

and once you let those bad experiences go,

you will discover a silver lining

buried beneath those gray clouds that start to separate

to allow the sun’s rays to kiss your scarred skin

as a rainbow forms in that clear blue sky.

Everything happens for a reason,

and every single event,

every single detail,

every single moment in time that you are

experiencing are a part of you

and will mold you into who you are today.

One question still remains in the back of your mind

and the answer is yes.

“Will I ever be happy?”

You will be happy.

You are happy.

I am happy.

Sincerely,

AnnMarie.

Eternal Love

By: Alexa Asperilla

It’s wondrous how the stars can never fail

To meet the sky when he begins to gloom

His blanket arms stretch out on every scale

And every night their love is bound to bloom

But when she’s not around he’s never bright

Without her near, the night’s as black as ink

And though the sun can shine a greater light

The stars are all that he could ever think

Then in his thoughts he grasps it all at last

That her existence never goes away

Their love was meant to be so pure and vast

For they’re together every single day

He views her as a beauty so sublime

His love for her cannot be killed by time.

My Heart

by Alexa Asperilla

she is guarded by my inability

to unlock the gates

in which love can enter,

she is disinclined by my fear

to embrace the arms

of those who claim to keep me safe

she hides beneath a burden of insecurity

where disappointment

is covered in false hope

and abandonment

is disguised by unrequited love

with my agony filling her brim

she weighs my chest closer to the earth

yet she still somehow finds the strength to search

for another soul to thaw me

Color Doesn't Define Me

By Shamar Binns

Race, Identity, Myself

things that make the me the person I am. Life is a endless story of people seeing me as the person I'm not.

Some say Haitian, some say Dominican, some say African, but the right is Jamaican.

People see the dark color that makes me and see me as a person who does bad deeds. The color of my skin doesn't make me a criminal; it just makes me a man of cultural descent.

I’m an intelligent young man who only does good in the name of God and my family. I may have color to my skin, but the color of my skin does not define me; it's just something I was born with. I’m honored to be a man of color because I’m the same as everyone around me.

The Vision We Had

By: Ricardo Giron

Our vision aches and groans,

Like the oldest bridge between cities.

That same bridge

Once connected me and you,

And kept us together.

My soul was the city with a smiling sun,

And yours with a magnificent moon.

With one there’s another.

It was fun to sometimes see

How the moon and sun

Would stand on either side

And wave to us as we passed.

And it’s comforting to remember,

When the sun and moon still believed we’d cross that bridge.

Opening My Eyes

By Tiarra Cruz

Opening my eyes, to see where I was born,

Looking around, to see where I am raised,

Listening, to everything that I am taught,

In a small world only I know

Moving around, to see other’s perspectives,

Nothing to be shamed for.

Opening my mind so that I can see through others'

To expand on my view

On all things peculiar,

To which I promise

To use my knowledge to open more eyes,

To a new bigger world not so small.

Two in One

By Armand Parungao

Bi-cultural, unilingual,

able to utter the phrase “mano po”

but being more comfortable saying “Hey”

able to go to a nearby American School

and learn American Curriculum

able to go to Filipino prayer groups and party after

in anyone’s home.

Filipino yet hyphenated,

viewed by Yankee as a stereotypical Asian

perhaps Chinese, particularly smart,

viewed by Filipinos as privileged

(their minds thinking: you are so lucky

compared to the hard life “back home”)

An American to Filipinos

A Filipino to Americans

an unbalanced balance

being closer to one side,

but able to experience both cultures

by happily embracing both sides

by jumping into any opportunity I can

Bi-laterally

Lightless Fires

By Bianca Abantao

All those who dream

Are not who they seem.

They live in desire

And die in lightless fires

Reaching for the heights

But falling from frights.

Never fading passions

Turn faces ashen.

Shattered sea shells

Beaten blue bells

Nothing ever mattered

Belongings lay scattered

Looking for a start and

Ending with a broken heart.

Their souls utterly crushed

From their dreams being hushed.

Starstruck

By Bianca Abantao

Deckled paper grazes my hand

as I turn a binded page and

letters suddenly flood into my vision

consuming every thought I had

before diving blindly

into someone else’s mind

and seeing an endless galaxy

of stars made up of words

and asteroids colliding

into each other creating an

explosion of debris and wreckage,

drifting aimlessly

until finding each other once more

and fitting together like puzzle pieces,

creating a constellation so profound,

that the only way to cease the

pulling sensation of the black hole,

was letting go entirely

and admiring the tale of the void,

while the stars were leading me

gently into the unexplored abyss

and I was finding myself starstruck

by letters made into words

and words made into galaxies.

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by Kayla Del Valle

Wandering in the wood

Leaves falling like confetti on New Year's Day

The crisp cool air in sync with our stroll

Hands hanging in harmony

Walking side by side

Our fingers laced lovingly

The warmth we share

So sweet and comfortable

Like hot chocolate slate or a s'more by the fire

The symphony of sweetness overwhelms my senses

The colorful leaves seem to express my emotion

Like love, they fall slowly

Then all at once

Undefined

by Aleana Masuda

Mono-lingual, bi-cultural

able to converse in fluent English

to friends and colleagues

in an innate, instinctive sense

unable to communicate in my native tongue

to family, under my roof and eight thousand miles away,

in an inarticulate, broken sense

unable to look either part,

always too White or too Asian

neither within the confines of one nor the other

American but hyphenated,

viewed by Whites as perhaps oriental,

perhaps exotic, definitely foreign

viewed by my own kind- my Philippine descent as white-washed,"

(their hushed tones say we may look the same

but deep down we are not,")

a familiar alien to Filipinos,

an estranged immigrant to Americans,

an undefined token,

conveniently slipping between either realm,

while concealed emotions are enclosed with

deceitful smiles and hidden damp tissues,

through suppressed feelings of chagrin,

from being under the surveillance

of unattainable standards,

bilaterally.

A Forgotten Infinity

by Isabelle McMenimon

as she slips away

evading man's desperate hold

depicting night and day

a force that can not be controlled

she's older than eternity

her youth remembered by the sun

for even in her eternity

we forgot that she has won

her presence never ceases

a truth unable to lie

yet we would shatter her to pieces

a bittersweet love we will deny

an essence of authority

grace evident in her immortal reign

Although viewed as an inferiority

she knows she's the cause of our pain

for she takes and never gives

depriving man of his prime

our world she outlives

she's beauty, that is time.

I am But a Boy

By Ricardo Giron

I am but a boy

With the qualities of someone

Who deserves so much more

Because as a boy,

I see the unfairness of the world

And how it continues to revolve

With no regard for those in pain

I see the tragedies of death and suffering

With no beauty to contrast it

I see the segregation between friends

Solely because of the color of their skin

I can look upon things from a point of view

No one else can

Through lenses of clarity

I am but a boy

With eyes that see far and wide

Eyes that have been plagued

By the ugliness of the world

With this curse I am forced to walk

To continue and see the things not worth seeing

For who could justify these hideous things

I am but a boy

With dreams for the future

A dream that will cleanse

A dream that will bring hope

Hope for those whose eyes

Have been covered in ugliness

I am but a boy

A boy that will bring better things

One that will not look away

One that will face the unfairness

And be the one

Who will bring change.