Her tears and
Slapped her face once when
She asked if she could sit next to you
In math class
She
Stopped coming to school one day after she
Walked home to avoid you on the
Bus on a cold day and she got sick
And the heater broke and there was no hot chocolate
Waiting for her. She
Ran in the forest but the deer had gone and
The trees were bare and she
Wanted to cry but didn’t know how
Anymore
You
Forgot about her and went on
Enclosed in your little bubble because you
Knew you would never drown and you
Knew there would always be hot chocolate on
Cold winter days and you
Never remembered her again until someone asked you at camp
How people can stand so far away and still insist
One star is brighter than the other
And strangely, you thought of
her
untitled
SARA CHUIRAZZI
This poem grew out of a conversation that Claire and I had about sisterhood, hometowns, and growing up. The piece is an exploration of loving someone boldly and being present in relationships, even when you’re not physically in the same place.
trees tell each other secrets underground
& we pretend like we don’t have any of our own.
find ourselves craving the safety of tangled roots,
shady days that came before we became
people who lived inside of phones
& kept watch on opposite ends of the day.
nowadays, we work hard to grow through concrete cracks,
far from the untouched forest where we grew up.
if you were sick, i’d send you nutrients through the soil;
break through the concrete & uproot myself,
as if presence were enough to heal.
you’re three trains away & there’s no cure
my body has been able to dream up for you.
nothing to send you when you’re sad,
so i talk you through photosynthesis over the phone,
how to breathe in and out until you make something new.
most days, i can’t remember anything past the first step:
take in the light.
GRACE YU
YEARS AS MENTEE: 1
GRADE: Freshman
HIGH SCHOOL: Hunter College High School
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: Queens, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Scholastic Art & Writing Award: Honorable Mention
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: When I first met Emily, I was both impressed and made nervous by her writing. She was so talented, and I was worried about how she would perceive me. But I soon realized that I shouldn’t have worried at all. Emily is genuine and helpful, giving feedback and encouraging me to expand my horizons as a writer. I wait for her every week in the children’s corner of a small, noisy library on Fiftieth Street, and then we walk together to Bloomingdale’s, where we talk and explore our passion for writing over lots and lots of frozen yogurt.
EMILY PRESENT
YEARS AS MENTOR: 2
OCCUPATION: Administrative Assistant, quantPORT; Founding Editor, glitterMOB
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
PUBLICATIONS AND RECOGNITIONS: Poems in Reality Beach and Powder Keg; accepted for April session of the Mors Tua Vita Mea Writers’ Workshop
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Grace’s fearless ambition and unique creativity are a constant source of inspiration for me. I am continuously in awe of how she (at only fourteen) so easily transitions between literary genres and artistic mediums. She can breezily write sharp fiction just as much as she can write beautiful and rhythmic poetry. She is not only talented but wildly curious, and I think that her curiosity is what keeps her grounded, humble, and eager to learn and to write. It is my true privilege to get to mentor her, as I feel she is mentoring me just as much in return.
used matches
GRACE YU
This piece was a subtle, half-dark, and half-nostalgic short story I wrote about the repercussions of a destructive friendship. The fiery boldness of the characters in this story eventually spirals out of control, leading to a tragedy. Sometimes the flames scorch you and swallow everything.
She was a genius. She got away with murder.
It was a dull summer that year. The heat was stifling, the mosquitoes settling in swarms and the children of the town restless, shifting uneasily in their bare callused feet and worn toes. The air was thick with dust and the smell of old furniture. I was rather lonely.
And then I met Jen.
Jen came into my life unexpectedly, a little bit like a thunderstorm. I found her on the beach while wandering around the sand trying to find pebbles to throw at the seagulls. Or rather, she found me. Jen always managed to find people.
She played with fire.
I was throwing stones and she was throwing matches. They flew like fiery arcs, suspended until they hit the ocean and fizzled out. Her hair was wild and unkept, and I thought she might burn herself with the matches if she wasn’t careful. Her green eyes seemed brighter under the glare of the afternoon sun. She glanced casually at me, and shivers ran down my back as I was held under her haunting, almost mesmerizing sort of gaze. Jen had that kind of effect on people.
And she spoke to me.
“Come.” Jen motioned toward me, and for a moment my heart stopped beating and I was spellbound, entranced by her hair and her eyes and her voice that sounded like the ocean during a storm.
I followed her and she handed me her matches and there was an electric tingle that flowed between our hands as we touched each other, and all of a sudden I felt like I’d known her forever, and there was no turning back and I would never live and breathe in the same way again. And I was right.
Then we were friends, Jen and I.
They never stopped burning.
The houses, they burned. Abandoned warehouses along the dock, with only black ashes to mark their places. And the people, they ran, screaming with voices like orange fireworks too close to the ground, firecrackers too loud. Mourning the crumbling wooden structures that they never used anyway. And the matches were scattered among the ashes, and we never retrieved them. After all, some secrets were best left untouched.
The matches gathered to dust until they disintegrated and nothing remained of them. They burned and I was kindled with satisfaction, my heart leaping and my eyes flickering between them and Jen, Jen who threw back her head and laughed this crazy laugh while her eyes opened wide, the flames reflected in them. Somehow I loved to see her happy, and it made me laugh, too.
She was happier.
She wanted to see the houses burn. She didn’t like it when no one lived in them, she said wood needed fire not to be lonely. At least she wasn’t lonely anymore. She had me, and I could never leave her again. I wanted to see the orange flames, the bright red sparks. I wanted to see Jen, when she smiled and looked like sunset burning the ocean.
And then …
One day it burned and it wasn’t empty.
It was a baby and it screamed and all of a sudden it was still. I didn’t know it was a baby in there. I wanted to see something burn, but I heard it cry out to me. I ran, leaving Jen behind. Later I saw its twisted little body, its grotesque features and the fire in my heart was put out and left with the dark ocean water and the ashes. Ashes. I was ashes.
Jen was quiet. The matches were in her hands like secrets waiting to be opened. They came and took her away later, but I was already home. My fiery sunset friend, she went with eyes dull like oxidized copper and I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t say anything.
I looked to the ocean.
It was weeks later. Weeks since I’d been outside. I went down to the beach and saw some matc
hes half buried in the sand.
A Dulled Match
EMILY PRESENT
“A Dulled Match” was inspired by my mentee, Grace’s piece, “used matches.” My poem is about claiming one’s own power and recognizing the fire in yourself no matter the odds. It is about daring to light up the world and set it aflame.
she burnt herself while looking in the mirror
it felt good to feel something, she thought
she grazed her inner thigh and put a blueberry in her mouth
she let it whisper to her
this is the taste of your beloved, it told her
she looked at herself again
she held the match out and lit it one more time
it flickered under her nose
it held its breath
it started doing that yoga ujjayi breath, ya know?
it moved with her and she was sorry she had ever tried to light the world up
instead she was burning it down
there was undoing before her
she wished she had known
the power she held in her flame
she wished she had thought about the others
she thought about the feelings she was prone to have
she thought about being known
and then hiding in a dull room
what shape would her life take?
there was so much chaos between the earth and the sky
she was only an untouched sample of it
she could escape
she could cry wolf
she could
she could kiss the flame and let it burn
EN YU ZHANG
YEARS AS MENTEE: 3
GRADE: Senior
HIGH SCHOOL: Stuyvesant High School
BORN: Hong Kong, SAR
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: It feels like Elizabeth and I have progressed a lot from our first few meetings as a fledgling pair. Now in our third year, we often spend a lot more time talking about random topics, but I like to think that we are exchanging perspectives in a meaningful way. It’s interesting to hear about ideas from her point of view, and I learn a lot from that. Then when we do start writing, I can be inspired to write about something differently.
ELIZABETH KOSTER
YEARS AS MENTOR: 3
OCCUPATION: Creative Writing Teacher, West Brooklyn Community High School
BORN: New York, NY
LIVES: New York, NY
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: I have been En Yu’s mentor at Girls Write Now for three years, and our meetings are so much fun. She’s whip-smart and insightful, and I enjoy sharing thoughts on everything from politics to people’s strange and curious ways. She’s quite talented, and her writing often makes me drop my jaw. This past year, we worked together on her college admission essay. After several rounds of revisions, she shared a version that was so strong that it hardly resembled her first draft. I was so proud of her when I learned that she’d gotten into her first-choice college.
One Night
EN YU ZHANG
I am fond of the stillness during the night, and I combined that atmosphere with the story of a man returning home from work.
“I’m home.”
To say that was simple habit; there was no one to respond. His expression unchanged, the man removed his shoes at the doorway and placed down his briefcase. He blinked as his gaze met the ground for a moment, noting the dust accumulating on the step.
It has been a while since he’s cleaned up, hasn’t it?
He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. The man then stepped into the room, briefcase in hand, eyes glazed and distant.
Men like this were quite common across the country. It was the position that most youth found their way into, no matter how ambitious their dreams and lofty their goals, a job valued as stable: the salaryman. They work long hours, hunched over papers and computers, blue light framing their faces; at night they are often obligated to drink with the rest of the office, as the boss sees fit. They come home late with drained eyes, throbbing wrists, and aching backs.
The man eased himself into a cross-legged position on the tatami mat, hands gripping his knees. The newspaper was from a week ago, when the overzealous neighbor came over, but would serve its purpose just fine. He flipped through the pages, noting with pleasure that the crossword puzzles were numerous in this edition. It only made sense for him to leave the room to retrieve a pair of scissors, which he then skillfully used to cut out the puzzles in neat, straight lines, creating orderly rectangles.
There was a stack of similar puzzles on the table in front of him. Those in his hand joined them. They were all unfilled, anyway. Well, at least they were always entertaining; the changing dates didn’t affect their quality.
Seeing that the newspaper didn’t offer anything else, the man folded it in half, then into quarters, and so on, till the paper was neatly collapsed into a rectangle the size of one’s palm. He slipped it into his back pocket, reminding himself to dispose of it later.
Satisfied with his findings, he unfolded his legs and stretched one out while leaving the other upright as support for a lazy arm. From the table he retrieved a lighter and a box of cigarettes, igniting one. He inhaled the smoke with a deep breath, as he could never get far enough away from his co-workers to attempt this during the day.
The man closed his eyes, though the flat yellow light of the room prevented sleep from reaching him. Sensing how fruitless an attempt it was, he opened his eyes once more, as if seeking some profit out of these remaining hours. He turned his head to the right, to a window. Anything beyond the glass was barely visible, as the reflection of the ceiling light engulfed it all, reducing the dark sky to the fringes.
Had he attempted to peer through the glass, to overcome the challenge that the artificial light had posed, the hazy sky would have welcomed him with warmth. The faint clouds provided some variation to the velvet quilt, which was rapidly darkening to give way to night. The evening was still, perpetuating itself with more silence still. But, as the man never tried to glimpse anything, he didn’t know any of this.
How Can You Not See This?
ELIZABETH KOSTER
This is from my memoir about what it was like to be the daughter of a high-powered publishing executive known as Dragon Lady, and my quest after her death to understand who I am without her.
“Anyone who worked with Elaine has Stories—with a capital ‘S,’” I read on the internet about my mother after her death. “I learned a lot those years at Penguin,” the ex-colleague continued, “not the least of which was how to look someone in the eye when I told them to go to hell.”
On the day of her funeral, I wore my blue floral dress, the one my mother had said was pretty the day before she died, as if I could hear her praise once again and know I’d pleased her.
In a small room in Riverside Memorial Chapel, windows over Amsterdam Avenue, each of her mourners—relatives on my father’s side and friends—were asked to produce an adjective that described her.
The first came from a relative, who said, mildly panicked: “She was tall.”
The next one nodded and echoed: “Tall.” A third did the same.
Tall? I suspected they just didn’t want to share what they really thought. My pianist friend Alex, whom I’d known since I was eight, talked about her enthusiasm—how she insisted he play the piano whenever he was over, and that appreciation made him swell with pride. I relaxed, knowing that someone in the circle, at least, knew her.
My dad shared that she was so afraid for my safety, she carried me across the street until I was three.
“Three?” I could imagine her holding me like a football and charging, her free hand extended to ward off traffic.
I heard laughter from the others and wanted to join in but couldn’t.
“And one day,” my dad said, “I picked you up to carry you across, as usual, and she snapped at me: ‘Bill! We’re not doing that anymore!’”
He chuckled.
How volatile her emotions were; how quicksilver her anger. And how varied her fears: climbing a tree meant falling, and death. Grass led to Lyme disease, and death. Sore throats led to strep; fevers to pneumonia; raccoons to rabies (and death). Why did death have to be everywhere? Was it everywhere?
“When you were a baby,” my dad continued, “she took a sharp-pointed umbrella with her, in case someone tried to kidnap you,” he said, laughing, but I was not.
“Kidnap me?”
“Yup. She thought someone would steal you.”
BASMALA ZYADA
YEARS AS MENTEE: 1
GRADE: Sophomore
HIGH SCHOOL: Millennium Brooklyn High School
BORN: Cairo, Egypt
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
MENTEE’S ANECDOTE: Sitting at a table at a Barnes & Noble, I told Hannah about how I struggled with completing projects and how I’m always losing interest in them. And so Hannah suggested we try NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). And so we did. And “Finite” was the result, a project centered on a woman reflecting on the regrettable state of her life. And though I’ve yet to finish it, it’s become something I’m very proud of.
HANNAH NESBAT
YEARS AS MENTOR: 1
OCCUPATION: Media Planner, St. Martin’s Press
BORN: Belmont, CA
LIVES: Brooklyn, NY
MENTOR’S ANECDOTE: Notes from a session/an incomplete list of what we have written that sheds a little light into all the things I’ve learned from Basmala this year: women facing emotional reckonings, women walking around their homes, picking up and putting down objects in the home, transferring emotion into everyday objects, rage, sadness, disappointment, silence, hands, a change of clothes, the sound of water running, the feeling of needing to cry, frustration, falling asleep.
Finite
BASMALA ZYADA
Hannah and I challenged ourselves to work on these projects for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), both centered around struggling women. This is an excerpt of the opening scene of that project.
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