The Art of Opening Up

emerald medrano

 

I look at the window, boarded

Up with nails, once shiny now a dull copper

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I flitch as the letter

Falls through the slot

Over a Game of Checkers

dina ebo

 

Silas walked into his bedroom and saw his dead sister waiting for him.

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He went rigid; he always felt a small jolt at the sight of Asa. The first time he saw her after she died, he thought she’d been a hallucination, and he told her as much. He knew ghosts were real. Everybody did, but nobody was prepared to see someone they knew in this state...

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anastasia ortiz

 

I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere. There were a few years in Puerto Rico where I felt like that’s where I was from – I ate guayaba and drank coquito for Christmas, I climbed quenepa and mango trees, and I pronounced all my r’s like l’s. I was as Boricua as the coqui’s that kept me up late into the night, singing along to my neighbor’s salsa.

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