Double Take

By Yuxin Zhao

It was the hottest day of the year, and I spent it in the garden. I climbed the Great Pagoda. The pagoda was made of a carefully decorated outer shell, a spiralling staircase set in the middle of wooden floors, and an emptiness divided into ten storeys. Its interior had the feeling of being left…

The Long Way Home

By Sahra Abdulrehman

Very early in my life, it was already too late.
To claim a single thing,
To taste belonging.

My father named me Zah-rah
after the wild rose bushes in Sanaa
in hopes I’d sprout thorns…

The Home Named “Daffodil”

By Rifat Mahbub

I read William Wordsworth’s little poem, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” when I did not know what a daffodil looked like. Mind you; it was before the era of Google and YouTube, so most people had a little bit of freedom to imagine, to make things up in their head based on their readings…

The Theatre

By Natalia Knowlton Vásquez

The scent of London called my name from a stew of childhood comforts:
Harry Potter, The Secret Garden, Matilda
simmering with The Beatles, Oasis, The Verve
and marinating in high hopes and stale stubbornness.

I came of age flying over…

The Foundling Hospital

By Malika Abdulhamidova

Almost five years ago, my ma
is crouching to look down at the fork
cemented into pavement, the shape
so definite we knew the story wouldn’t end well
before we looked. 1741 orphans, parcel-bound,
left at the first children charity in 1739,
the lucky white ball for a mother to…

Home Is Where Acton Park Is

By Amir Darwish

As you walk, the leaves of my trees will caress your face gently;

the dew will smuggle itself into your nostrils from my branches;

the sound of birds will echo in your ears.

You will recall the deepest memories as you lower…