EMERGING ARTISTS & WRITERS
ADITI CHANDRA, LINDSAY EMI & FARAH GHAFOOR

Aditi Chandra, Reconnect — Aditi Chandra, *Reconnect*

LINDSAY EMI

SONNET AS AVIARY

In my other life I am a poet,
writing about birds and pretending to be

sad. My mouth is full of different words
for different times, always. I make up most

of these words. I write them at night
and there are no birds then. In my poetlife

I am waiting for a tragedy to happen
to me. Something to free myself from.

Otherwise I am only a bird drifting
through air, or a noose, the same bird

like any other godless bird
in a landscape; it spills over

with animal hearts and dead things. All
around me it is like this. Here goes nothing.

FARAH GHAFOOR

BLUE BOYS

there’s no time for artificial wine
so we pour beer into graves
so they can “light(en) up”
so we can “light(‘em) up”

already death is a burden
the blue boys say
lying face down in piles
our mouths are full of dead skin
and the pencil shavings of short wills
crushed engagement rings in our teeth
we swallow and watch them rise
silver balloons bobbing
monotonously
spread angels
sharpening their nails on sins
grasping at our (im)morality
immortality

we are all sophomores on night shifts
our bones skeleton keys
gently decaying.

IMMORAL GLORY

I thought you were eaten by a bear
once.
and then you came back breathing
like you tamed it,
wearing its paws as gloves
as armour
and you started smiling in a way
that made us think you took out all of its teeth
to make a necklace to be feared
and I preened, thinking
it was beautiful.

Aditi Chandra is a high school student from Bhopal, India. Her works have been published in magazines such as Textploit, Teen Ink and are forthcoming in others. She is the art editor of Inklette magazine and Phosphene literary journal. She is a mythology enthusiast and loves searching for deep mysteries around.

Lindsay Emi is sixteen years old and a junior at Viewpoint School, CA. She has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, Sierra Nevada College, and the National Council of Teachers of English, among other organizations. Her work has been published in Sierra Nevada Review, Winter Tangerine Review, National Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. When not writing, she enjoys editing for literary magazines, studying classics, and playing piano.

Farah Ghafoor is fifteen years old and likes the way "poet" tastes in her mouth. Her work is forthcoming in The Waves on the Shore anthology fall 2015. Find her at worrdwoman.tumblr.com.