UBC's Undergraduate English Journal
There I am, ripped overalls and parted bangs, digging under the hazel tree out back.
I’m planting teeth. Two baby teeth came out in an apple that morning, milk white in the browning fruit. My tongue fits perfectly into the soft space the teeth vacated and it tastes like that chainlink fence we pressed our tongues to last winter […]
Wizened red cedar siding fades
into neighbourhood at the end of my laneway
as subtle as a home after a house-wrecking party.
I walk through decades of tiny moments with
my eye only on his basement window […]
My aunt sits by the river and feeds honey and flowers to the spirits. She makes a painting of a water goddess and tells me, Aspire to holy compassion. She gives me a sequined flag, a feather boa, and some dark red beads. When I am fifteen she says, You are very very old and, Wait for love, it is coming and you’ll recognize it […]
I’ve written about “my people” before
and then I’ve heard them call back “your people?”
Who now gave you our voices? You lived in a home
made of foreign paper with foreign walls […]
I was supposed to stand still
You were supposed to leave me alone.
I didn’t even breathe as you crawled over my feet and knees
I kept my eyes wide open […]
Functioning as microcosms of society’s social inequalities, schools often mirror social norms and ideologies, providing a significant context in which children begin to form and understand gender identities. The complex cultural arena of this “hidden curriculum” is portrayed in Alex Mino’s George, wherein the protagonist struggles to find a means to express her identity as a transgender girl […]
pick up
your roots run while there’s
still time they’re coming
hungry armed with axes […]
