Comic: Cupcake & Basil, by Zachary-Michael Clarke

 

Poetry: Wanderlust - A Heart's Longing, by Tanvi Nagar

My heart aches for another breeze to brush by me gently,

My road of life is shaped by the curvaceous path of destiny,

My dwelling is in every creek, in every cave by the mountain side,

I don’t have a friend who keeps my secrets, in whom I confide,

I am not garlanded by pearls, I am adorned by the solar systems’s star dust,

I keep one foot after the other, inspired by my soul’s own wanderlust.

 

My heart aches for the dingy forests and scent of the fresh roses,

I do not regret over the roads in life I have left behind, unchosen,

I am enchanted by this stupendous world, by every blue river and stream,

I seek pleasure in the untruthfulness of my illusionistic dreams,

I do not wish to bear the weight of the finest of silk nor purest gold,

I only yearn that mysteries of this world, with my wanderlust, I can unfold. 

 

When my heart aches for the magic of nature, the brilliant shades of rainbows,

I am not bound to choose the grassy road neither the one with snow,

I do not reside in the lavish houses in the country,

The lap of nature is enough to soothe my weary body,

My pockets are filled with emptiness like the core of my longing heart,

This immortal longing of mine, is satisfied by nature’s exquisite art. 

 

My aching heart, desires to see all of life’s zillion hues,

For my soul’s lust for adventure, the earth is it’s muse,

With nothing more than an ignited desire of adventure,

I have no tales to tell of heroism, cowardice or valor,

Yet wanderlust takes upon my soul in a thousand different ways,

It is this unusual desire that shapes my destiny, the world says.

Poetry: Thursdays, by Tessa Wheeler

 

Undercurrents of a prismic sea ripple across a tile floor, washing up memories, pulling my consciousness from the front of my head. 

I am living, yes, but I am experiencing life behind a shutter.

I am peeking through the worn threads of an Eraserhead hoodie, watching everyone file past in a blue-tinted grain, 

where I am pulled into a 360-pan by the muted swirls of a 25 cent shawl knotted around my wrist. The shallow eyes of anyone with a story to tell bore into my soul and I am thrust into their world. There’s a twisting in my gut as I try to speak but feel the lanyard on my neck tighten, pulled by a coffee scented breath on my cheek. I try to wrench myself from my seat but I am tied down with the wires of a long-forgotten pair of headphones, my feet anchored to the ground in a slick of iced tea. The unfortunates close in, their eyes impossibly bright, spitting their monologues in my face, 

The world spins around me again, and I throw blind punches, this reality tearing into thin ribbons wrapped around my fingers.

Bubbling hope fills my stomach but at the same time the delicious crunch of apathy is crammed into my ears, muting my thoughts, plunging me into a haze. 

My hands, coated in all the sins of humankind, fly to my face, try to block the impending attack. 

Graphite stings against my cheekbones, my brow bone, my clavicle. 

I want to scream as they push their woes on me, yank at the gears turning in my head to try and get them to twist another way, but I cannot because my lips are sewn together with the same red thread that suspends the “no talking” sign above the doorway.

So I stay quiet.

I fill my mouth with tasteless popcorn, wash it down with liquid sugar, and try to blink back tears, ignoring the stares I sense in the darkest corners of the room.

 I feel like I’ve finally found my place there, I tell myself, but in the hours afterward while I walk down cold, empty sidewalks under a starless dome, squinting my eyes at cars that drive by me slowly, I doubt what I’ve convinced myself of.

 

The guilt of the world is a lot to shoulder.

But every Thursday, I come back and do it all over again.

Poetry: The Sweet Scented Lilies, Soup, and Music by Tanvi Nagar

 

I

We strung together the sweet scented lilac lilies with perfection

and laced the low hanging air of despair with your magical melodies.

The red, blue and green lines on the screens fluctuated freely 

tirelessly racing rhythmically- as if creating their own music. 

The aroma of light-yellow luscious lamb soup escaped from the bowl

as if racing to reach the titled, square white ceiling first;

II

My glassy eyes, stayed fixed upon the skeleton before me- bones, flesh and a little you,

encased in a coffin of peachy pale skin and numerous twisted tubes;

the incisions in your skin fresh- with little red droplets of blood that oozed out

made my heart beat faster; fluttering like a kite in the sky before its string is cut.

the skin in your hands and feet hung loose and lifeless

which made it harder to imagine how blood was gushing underneath this sheet,

there was so much movement in the molecules of your being 

yet, so much stillness in the spirit of your existence.

your eyelids were shut closed, concealing the gateway to your universe within,

like the white sheet that covered the scars the sharp needles left on your body.

III

We strung together the sweet scented lilac lilies with perfection

and laced the low hanging air of despair with your magical melodies.

The red, blue and green lines on the screens fluctuated freely 

tirelessly racing rhythmically- as if creating their own music. 

The aroma of light-yellow luscious lamb soup escaped from the bowl

as if racing to reach the titled, square white ceiling first;

It was hard to imagine life of a human, so powerful yet dangerously delicate-

hanging on the monitors, meters, measures.

It was still more hard to imagine what pulling the plug from a socket 

can do to the one hanging on it like threads of loose cloth ripped at the ends.

IV

The lilac lilies danced in farewell, to some sad song it seemed

the monitors beating slower, slower and slower still 

with their constant repeating beat- beep.

the waves resounded and repeated

until the notes on the screen

refused to go up and down 

and the fumes from

the soup didn’t 

escape at 

all.

Poetry: You're Human, by Mariam Vaid

What if I told you, "pretty' was just six letters strung together,
A label created by society, a superficial image women are forced to maintain
The badge of perfection that you struggle to attain is all a lie.
For no one can be "pretty" nor ugly
But what we can be, is human.
What if I told you "pretty' was a tortuous, skin deep prison, they put you into,
Surrounded by the haunting echoes of people telling you how you should be
"If you ate less and lost a little weight, you'd be so pretty"
"If you have the most expensive taste in fashion, you'd be so pretty"
Here's what they mean: "Only if you look like those models on T.V, you're pretty"
Sweetheart, what if I told you, you aren't pretty, you never were and never will be.
You are an intricately crafted phenomenon
Too complex, to ever be described by a word as simple as "pretty"
Every particle in your body carefully picked from this vast universe,
A carefully thought out palette of your looks, your eyes, and smile,
Every curve and scar of your body carefully plucked from the sunsets and skies.
You are too unique to alter and replace, every part of you too beautiful to change.
So if anyone ever says that by doing something you'd be so pretty
Tell them "pretty" doesn't dictate your worth and is something you never aspire to be.

Poetry: Faded, by Tanvi Nagar

 

The warm yellow sunshine-

fire from the golden medallion 

its orange-red fiery fangs 

reaching out towards the earth

pouring in through slits of the horizon

where the clouds don’t cover the lands

and the mountain tops don’t reach,

kissed my forehead and tanned my hands

and then bounced off the photograph 

that was held in the clasp of my sweaty palms. 

Its brownish coffee-coloured edges 

tested by the toughest times

and the yellowness set into the frame 

made the faces in the picture seem more alive.

The two girls-hand in hand

their soft faces lit up by stunning smiles

looked directly into the camera

as if staring straight into my eyes. 

Maybe it was a mirror, one its kind-

for I was able to look into my eyes 

from so many years ago

yet, not fully recognise the little girl 

I saw in the faded photo. 

Amid the smudged background 

and the shoreline of the beach 

I could make out my father’s figure-

admiring his two daughters by the beach. 

My mother behind the lens 

captured this moment into a frame

yet was missing from the shot 

like some of the fleeting passerbys’ hands

who were somehow silhouettes in my past 

and yet, nothing more than that. 

Sitting on the same spot at the beach 

looking at the sun fall into the horizon 

as if simply sliding by into another world 

carrying away the day’s secrets,

and the clouds breaking and crumbling-

colouring the sky with varied hues, 

all whilst my hands held the course grains of the sand 

and I paced into the past and ran back as fast 

into the present world of mine.

The gentle wind touched my forehead 

and the water splashed onto my feet 

What if these were the same droplets of water 

that were captured in the photograph?

Maybe, I held the same sand in my hands too.

But the people in the frame-

they couldn’t ever remain preserved in that time.

They were simply remnants of my past and 

just like the photograph in my hands, 

they were blurred, faded and damaged, 

yet alive-

inside the chambers of my mind. 

Poetry: Rainstorm, by Mariam Vaid

You were born to be a rainstorm,

To hide the darkness with your light,

To show your presence with a boom of thunder,

To send your voice throughout the night,

You were born to show beauty that was raw,

To wash the dirt from their eyes,

But the whole world ran for the hills,

When you opened up your skies,

So you forced your thunder to be silent,

And learned to bite your rainy tongue,

They finally got what they thought they wanted,

You gave them life with endless sun,

As they saw their minds growing weak,

And their hearts becoming dry,

They wished they hadn't taken for granted,

Your rainy presence in the sky,

You were born to be a rainstorm,

To be strong and to be bold,

To show the world that even after everything,

Your thunder and rain were still uncontrolled,

So when you think you're unimportant,

Know that life without you wouldn't be the same,

Because nothing in the world would grow,

If it wasn't doused with rain.

Photography: On The Windowsill, by Andrew R

 

Poetry: Serendipity, by Sarah Chaudhry

She knows what I’m thinking about, thinking about 

What do I think about?

I think about the love in my heart that pumps blood faster as my eyes fall on her smile,

the expression that never fails to warm me when the coldest nights grapple for my breath. 

I think about her honey-dewed irises, that spark with such a glimmering life and passion that it’s beyond comprehension. 

I think about her laugh, the best type of plague to fall ill to.

I think about her, for all of her laughter and cries and the touches under countless of midsummer nights that have become the best days of my life.

I think about loving her, and the black box that cost the best fortune resting in my pant pocket, waiting to be opened.  

 

Author's Note: The first line of the poem is a reference to the song "Sweater Weather" by The Neighbourhood.  

 

 

Poetry: The Writer, by Mariam Vaid

 She has a bookshelf for a heart,

And ink runs through her veins,

She'll write a story about you,

With the typewriter in her brain,

Her bookshelf's getting crowded,

With all the stories she's penned,

Sometimes people open the books,

But close them before the end,

There's one book at the very corner,

It sits there and collects dust,

The title is written in cursive,

"The One Who Broke My Trust."

Some books she's scared to open,

Others she doesn't close,

Stories about people she's met,

Stretched out in endless rows,

 

Some people just have a paragraph,

Others held the main part,

Millions of inky footprints,

They left in the bookshelf of her heart,

 

People wonder why she writes books,

About people she once knew,

Because one day she hopes to find someone,

Who'd write about her too. 

Painting: Space Envision, by Afia Faiza Shopno

 

Space is unseen to many in real life. Outer space is not completely empty. It can be very fantastical, if we assume: "Envision, create and believe in your own space, and the envision will form around you." This painting is an imaginative depiction. "Imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."