Safi Zenger

Mixed Media by Sam Yoon

There is salt on your fingers as you enter. This salt, born of wounds, aged by generations. It is the salt of your mother and her mother, her husband and their parents. But not your father. His salt is of a different kind, that of which salts food left to mold, food dropped from raided skies, food for pale skinned blonde babies. A baby which you are not. But a baby, that yes you are. For this salt that came with you out your mother’s womb. It has hindered you from growing up and yet also quickened the process of age.

You are wise beyond your years. Black cakes your fingers like chalk. Maybe you’re Basquiat. Maybe the chalk is pastel. Black is pastel in the right light— the right eyes. Your eyes.

Why the red line under his name. It makes you wish you were a Donahue, but no Michelangelo could paint your curves through the roses in your glasses. All they see are is thorns. Thorns used to build a throne. Your throne but never your bosom.

It is your time, you sit upon the gold put there by your ancestors for the other side of your tree. And you look at your hand and there is no more salt. For the salt has been rubbed in the wound, dusted off by the sweep of a generation.

Shira Wolpowitz

Photograph by Shira Wolpowitz

The 45-minute drive with my mom from my viola lesson to my brother’s hockey practice was silent, as usual. Having sat through that car ride every week for years upon years, I had memorized the names of every single street we passed, and the different shops along the sides of the road.

Two weeks prior, one of my best friends had just gotten a new pair of UGG boots with bows on the backs. It was late November, and my winter boots from last year were definitely too small. I had grown three inches that year and was now one of the tallest girls in my fourth grade class. I really wanted a pair of matching UGGs, but I was too afraid to ask. My mom was tired, you could see it on her face, and I knew that anything I said might set her off.

As we drove through suburban Newton, I felt the words on the edge of my tongue. I had been wanting these boots for a while, but I just couldn’t get the words out. Growing up as the only girl in my whole extended family, I wore hand-me-down clothes from my older boy cousins and played with blocks, trains, and stuffed animals with my younger brother. In elementary school, I had always seemed like a tomboy. But something deep inside me still wished for the barbie dolls and the sparkly pink dresses that all of my classmates used to wear. I felt ashamed of my desire to be more girly and fit in more with my classmates, because my mom had always had an aversion to that.

I stared out the window of our car, watching all of the familiar houses pass by. The late November wind blew crisp brown leaves up from the ground and through the air. A leaf landed on our windshield and slowly slid up to the roof. My mother said nothing. I wanted her to say something, anything. I wanted her to ask me a question, ask me how my day was. But she said nothing, and I felt the weight of the question fall into the pit of my stomach.

I never ended up asking for the UGGs. It wasn’t like we couldn’t afford them, and maybe my mom would’ve said yes, but I just had this gut feeling that I shouldn’t say anything. From an outside perspective, a moment like that might seem insignificant. Thinking back to it now, I probably should’ve just asked for the boots. Maybe I was just reading too far into the situation.

Someone recently asked me if I wanted to have kids when I grew up. “Of course!” I answered, not thinking too hard about the question. When she asked me why, though, I didn’t really know how to answer. When I think of motherhood, I think of how much work it takes. I think about setting a good example for my children, but I also consider how my actions will affect their behavior, the things they won’t tell me. The idea of being a mother still scares me a lot. Something that I feel is a really important part of motherhood is maintaining open communication between parent and child. I don’t want my children to worry about how their actions will affect me, or to make false assumptions about how I want them to behave. I want them to feel comfortable expressing their feelings, even when it’s for something as insignificant as a pair of sparkly UGGs.

Amelia Cheng

I remember how my mama cradled me that night. I couldn’t sleep alone with the roar of Daddy’s car as it sped out of town still hanging between my ears. I remember her clinging onto me, fingertips digging into my skin as my back warmed against her belly. The bed still felt too cold, too big for our two small bodies. Her chest trembled, jerking as staggered breaths ran between her lips. I didn’t need to check to know her pillow would be wet for a long time.

We lay there for hours, awake and holding onto each other. It was only when her sobs melded into the patters of the rain splattering our windows that I felt my eyelids droop, heavy with the weight of packed suitcases and a Goodbye. With the ache in my heart, I let myself succumb to sleep, sheltered in my mama’s arms. Only now do I wonder who needed the other to overcome the howl of the storm that night.

I’ve lived nearly half of my life since that night. My mother never looked back, and neither did my father, never looked behind him, the smell of gasoline trailing his getaway until I couldn’t follow the tail of smoke any longer.
Until it all faded into the sky.

I sat there in my brother’s room, staring at the highest window of our house until the night engulfed our little corner of the earth. I wondered how the stars could still shine tonight. Could they not feel the earth tearing itself in two as I could? Did they not feel the fire that burned through me, coursing in my veins like the blood that he abandoned the moment his foot hit the gas pedal? Did the stars not weep for us? My lungs blazed until Mama peeled me away from the window. I didn’t realize I wasn’t breathing.

Warm arms enwrapped me, barricading me from the audacity of the night sky as we rose up to our feet, stumbling into harsh reality. My fingers latched on, cementing to her waist as she steadied me, and I felt myself lean into her strength. I held on because she was all I had.
She hasn’t let go of me since.