The Professional and Academic Discrimination Issue: Poetry Roundup

Each issue we feature the pieces of Asian womxn all around the world. Here are this issue’s pieces!

Colonized by Latisha Horstink

A whole lot more than
Just a hole
A whole
Full woman
A hole,
Woman.
The colonisers gaze;
At land
Mountainous
Fertile
land
Inhibited but not yet understood
A home
With no walls
Just windows
No curtains
A hole
On a scale of black and white
Highlighted
In yellow
Setting sun
On land
Mountainous
Fertile
land
A home
With no walls
Just windows
A whole
Full woman
Reduced to just
a hole
The colonisers gaze;
Taught me admiration
The colonisers gaze;
Taught me seduction
The colonisers gaze;
Taught me temptation
The colonisers gaze;
Taught me determination
The colonisers gaze
Taught me;
How to be stubborn,
How to be blunt
but,
Sharp

Colonisers gaze;
This body is claimed
Claimed by its inhabitants
Stubborn inhabitants
Armed with blunt bullets
And sharp shields
A whole lot more than
Just a hole
A whole
Full woman
A hol
-ly
Woman.
I am my own land
Mountainous
Fertile
Land
Inhibited and worshiped
Highlighted
In yellow
Setting sun
I am home

Ways To Listen by Latisha Horstink

Feel
Like you want to look away
Like the sorrow from your mother’s eyes
Like a fly buzzing in your ear
Like a hang nail caught in hair
Like the breath of my words slaps you across the face
Think
Why?
Don’t
Talk
Do
Listen

Immigrant by Sai Gayathri Kurup

Sometimes I wonder
What life would have been like
If I had stayed.
Try hard enough
And I can relive those nostalgic memories
All over again.
The boys, playing cricket
As the hot sun glared down.
People coming out
Of mosques, temples, churches
All on the same street
Like swarms of mosquitoes.
The smell of
Sweet, juicy mangos and
Savory, roasted peanuts
Mingling with the loud horns
Of rickshaws on the road.
Lying under the ceiling fan
On colorful straw mats
Reading for hours on end
About great queens
Powerful kings, fierce warriors.
Why did I leave?
Did I make a mistake?
Should I be in this country
That doesn't want me for me?
For my skin tone
My religion, my race?
They preach equality and freedom
But it doesn't deliver anymore.
Accused of not
Belonging, not assimilating
All because I'm proud.
Proud of my other half,
My homeland.
Then I look forward.
What do I see?
My father, treating
His patients with 
The utmost care
Depsite the hateful
Words that stab, 
Pierce like hot knives. 
"You're stealing our jobs."
"You're not a real American."
My mother, trying
To rebuild a new life
Out of the ashes she brought
From our old home,
The ashes that once resembled
A life where she had
Everything.
They had sacrificed everything.
For me.
ME.
So when I look forward,
I'm reminded of

One more thing.

The opportunities that
Lay in front of me
A vast ocean of them.
This range of possibilities
Of how I could
Make my mark,
Make a difference,
Change the world.
That's why I'm here.
So land of the free,
Home of the brave,
You may not be perfect
But I will forever
Be grateful for 
What you've given me."