Punk Monk Press/Magazine

Edges My body’s edges have melted like wax. First, my skin lay soft and plump over my bones. Then, as I grew older, the shape of tibia, fibia, femor, patella, spinal column, ribcage, scapula, clavicle pressed against the tight skin like rocks pushing through the dirt. Later, that cover was stuffed like the fat cushions on my grandmother’s bed, curved and firm, sex spread across my chest, my hips, my arse, my taut round calves, until my belly bulged like a medicine ball then emptied and shrank back, loose as a deflated balloon. Food became my greatest joy. My flesh was a plastic bag pushed smooth from the inside by the pressure of dimpled fat. I ate as if food was life itself, ravenous, insatiable. As I grew larger, I became unseen. No one noticed the gorgeous mounds and hidden crevices, the golden hairs glittering along the horizons of my body. No one valued my manatee hips, my bolster breasts resting on a mattress midriff. And, now, my body’s edges have melted like wax, grown into lay...

Sisters from the hood You and me Playing in the rain Building castles with sand Playing suwe Stealing pennies to buy eyin alangba (egg shaped sweets) and bubble gum Running for miles On our scrawny legs Eating together from the same plate and disagreeing with the division of the lone piece of meat alloted us Fighting and making up...over and over again So many years ago I heard you came back to the hood And made haste to visit you, my sister from the hood How shocked I was When you snubbed me What can fa? (What could cause this?) Is it because you return with an acquired accent? Is it because you return, coldly polished and strangely distant? Is it because you now feel superior to me because, I never left? My sister from the hood returns But not to me. --Solape Adetutu

Will I still love me? They said I talked too much So I said less Said I wore a whole lot So I exposed more Said I lacked a social life So parties became my life Said I loved too much So I began loving less With every complaint they levied I made a change Because I craved their attention Because I longed for love But the person in the mirror became unrecognizable With the more recognition I got And I began to forget What I really loved And as I stared into blank space I thought about it Because while I got their love I had forgotten how it felt To look at myself and smile And all I could think is Now that they all love me Do I still love myself? -Hannah Njoki 

I think to myself,    “I know how to make my eyes sad, brown, and heartfelt, with longing.”    I look in the mirror. I think about what got me here, in the bathroom of a grand ballroom in a camp made by some rich Orthodox Rabbi from Lakewood, NJ. How did I get inside the bathroom and away from the Passover Seder? Why am I celebrating Passover with a bunch of acquaintances of mine from some religious Jewish camp I attended over the summer? Right.    Drunk, sad, and lonely, I sat at Passover Seder in a camp in upstate New York and I did not belong there -- not at the Passover seder, not here in this world. Instead of the Hebrews who found their faith, their G-D, and home, I was like Joseph, who was thrown into a well by his brothers and sold off into slavery. Oh, how much I wanted to leave and run away from everything!    Never did I think I was the one who abandoned anyone. But, I did! I never ran away. I just listened to the girl in the mirror and...

The Day Movers Took Linda’s Things Laniar D. Romon   I was screaming though my mouth was closed. I was crying though my eyes were dry. That’s because they were taking away Mom’s stuff, and Ray, her husband but not  my  father, just said something about her being crazy because she’d bought a gas stove ten years ago, but they only had electric. I watched them put it on a dolly and wondered why I hadn’t ever seen it before. “Jace?” I turned; it was Ray. The look in his eyes told me something he didn’t want me to know. Screaming again, lips sealed. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” he said. “I loved your mother very much.” He was watching my every move so I nodded just so I could get away. But he kept talking, cutting me off at the door. “How are you holding up?” he asked. “Fine,” I lied. “Yeah,” he said, softly. “You miss her as much as I do.” Asshole! “I do,” I swallowed the scream again. The last thing I needed was to piss him off because I had nowhere else to go, ...