ISSUE 01:
GROWING PAINS
Copyright © 2021 Kiwi Collective Magazine.
All rights reserved. This magazine or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Kiwi Collective Magazine except for the use of quotations in a review or related non-commercial uses or features. For permission requests, please reach out to Kiwi Collective Magazine via the website.
ISSN: 563-9722 (Online)
Front cover by Bella Wei
Magazine design by Bella Wei and Isha Multani
Edited by Darnie Tran and Iqra Abid
Dear Reader,
A year has gone by since the pandemic was announced in March. For many people, this period of quarantine and uncertainty has left us with time to self-reflect and become more introspective. Many of our lives have changed suddenly, some of us moving back with our parents, losing our jobs, entering relationships and exiting relationships. The world has endured a lot this past year, to say that we have changed is an understatement. With all of that in mind, the Kiwi team chose the theme Growing Pains as a way to celebrate and embrace all of the ways we have grown. No matter where you are in the process of growing, remember that growth is not linear and that everyone grows at a different pace. Thank you to everyone who shared their work. Your documentaries of self-discovery are important and deserve to be shared with the world.
Sincerely,
Darnie Tran
Editor (they/them)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
For The Archive
by Sabine Gaind
how do you know when you’ve finally grown up?
when you’ve crossed those liminal spaces between
childhood,
adolescence,
adulthood?
is it when those shoes, once a size too big,
are now two sizes too small?
or when a sugar rush is no longer exhilarating,
but nauseating?
a body doesn’t feel like it’s enough for all the memories.
a body feels like a never ending archive.
the theme song to a favourite saturday morning cartoon;
the home phone number of an old best friend;
the heartbeat of a first crush;
the scars from falling during recess;
the warmth of reading under the covers past bedtime.
the archive keeps growing every day
and along with it an ache
for what was then
and isn’t now.
when you start to miss
something,
someone,
a time,
a place —
does that mean you’ve grown up?
Imagined Relics
by Shaneela Boodoo
When we consider the female nude, especially in the age of the selfie, “imagined relics 1” deals with obscurity and dysphoria, and current aesthetics surrounding pleasure in a brown woman’s body. The gaze is of the artists, yet parts of her body and face are hidden from view. This portrait, which can be viewed as a personal expression of pleasure is romanticized with flowers and dreamy lighting. However, anxious repeated mantras float around the images that show the doubt behind this small action of personal pleasure. They are pretty images, but ultimately, they are very controlled and not real expressions of intimacy for the artist. This is not an empowering expression, and has fearful undertones. It is a longing for true vulnerability and bodily autonomy as well as an attempt at having those things through images that resemble westernized “female empowerment”.
Growing Pains with Natalie Wee
Interviewed by Iqra Abid
Natalie Wee is a community builder, writer and editor. She was the first runner-up for the 2020 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, the winner of the 2019 Blue Mesa Review Summer Contest for poetry, and has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She writes about race, gender, queerness, and her experiences as a non-citizen. Her debut poetry collection, Our Bodies and Other Fine Machines, is set for reprint this coming summer with Teh People Studio.
Photography by filmandfone
Art by Gobelyn
Thank you for joining the Kiwi Collective in celebrating our first issue, Growing Pains!
In February, we reached out to our audience and asked them to send us artwork inspired by the theme “growing pains”. Can you start us off by sharing your interpretation of “growing pains”?
NW: To come into another version of the self requires a reckoning of sorts. We have to decide what we want our futures to look like and our place in it; this often involves some form of evolution, a shrugging off of previous states of being, only to realize that there’s so much more left to do.
Deciding on the theme of “growing pains” included a fruitful discussion with our editorial team. One resonating idea from the discussion was to redefine the “coming-of-age” genre as a journey of self-realization without a strict time-frame— a journey that can take place at any age rather than only while transitioning from childhood to early adulthood. Do you think you have had your coming-of-age journey yet? If so, what is the most important thing you learned during that experience?
NW: If we were to define coming of age as a journey of self-realization, then I have been and continue to be in a state of this transition. One of the most important things I’ve learned is to trust myself—and in doing that, trusting that I do want to live.
What 2-3 songs would be a part of your coming-of-age soundtrack. Why these songs?
NW: I know you asked for 2-3 songs, but nothing compares to Mitski’s Geyser for me. It’s the ferocity of the song that grips me, first, and then the lyrics: you’re the one I want / I’ve turned down every hand that’s beckoned me to come. What is that if not poetry? What appears to be a love song gains a new dimension when we remember that Mitski told NPR the song was about music, or the ability to create music or a career out of it. This song then becomes a conversation between an artist and her medium, its failings and her own, and what they demand of each other. As someone who uses writing to reach for alternate ways of being, this song definitely underscores the questions I ask myself about writing in relation to my identity and self-worth as I continue to grow. I am a lot more than just a writer, but even I forget that sometimes.
What is your favourite coming-of-age book or movie?
NW: Ghibli’s Spirited Away is my favourite coming-of-age movie. I think there’s plenty of stories out there where a loss of innocence or coming into a new state of being leads to disillusionment with life and cynicism. For me, personally, I don’t feel those things are helpful because I’m already grieving and cynical; how could I not be, with what’s going on in the world? I admire art that resists this disillusionment. What I need to go on is a reminder that we can still hope, and that it’s possible to be kind to each other even under trying circumstances.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us missed out on celebrating birthdays and what feels like, 1-2 years of our life. Getting older and growing (or struggling to grow) throughout this time period has looked a lot different when compared to our own pasts. How do you feel you have grown or not grown during the pandemic?
NW: I’ve grown to recognize my grief better and to breathe through it a little more.
How has your writing grown or not during the pandemic?
NW: To be honest, I haven’t been writing. Writing is one of the least important things to me right now; a poem can’t feed me when I’m struggling to get out of bed or help me hold my loved ones from 13 hours and a continent away. I only want to live.
How did you grow into your voice as a writer?
NW: I’m not sure I ever did! But I would say I read a lot of works by contemporaries and peers and hold them dear to my heart. I do tend to write and rewrite my works a lot so that I don’t always recognize it anymore. If that final product is what’s perceived as my voice as a writer, then perhaps my voice is only what survives the culling process.
Photography by filmandfone
Art by Rue
What inspires you to keep writing?
NW: You know, it’s funny, but I’ve seriously considered giving up writing multiple times because it does nothing for me in my real life. Nothing I write will undo what violence was done to me, or keep me safe, or bring someone back from the dead. But there’s a little voice in my head that sometimes goes, “Hey, I have something to say,” and sometimes I believe it—that my writing will change nothing but it deserves to exist, anyway. But it is not something I owe to the world.
Your debut poetry collection, Our Bodies and Other Fine Machines, is currently undergoing a revised reprint to be released in August 2021. What pushed you to revise the book when you decided to reprint it?
NW: For one, I look back at my old work with a lot of embarrassment. Oh god, who is she? But I mean that literally: that speaker no longer exists because the writer who created her has also ceased to exist, and I have no desire to revive that speaker. My friend and colleague Jasmine Gui suggested I think of writing as snapshots, and in this sense, I’m revising the collection with my present voice the way one might update a photo gallery. But who knows? I don’t expect this speaker or voice to exist five years from now, either.
In a previous interview with Room Magazine, you said “I wanted the experience of reading the book to mirror the progression of understanding oneself.” Does your revised release of Our Bodies and Other Fine Machines capture any new changes in the progression of self-understanding?
NW: I make some better mistakes.
Do you think any of the pieces featured in this collection incorporate the idea of “growing pains” in any way?
NW: There are a few poems in there that deal with the tension between selves, but the fact that this book was born as a revision of another version of itself also speaks to that same tension. In essence, the book exists in this tension and only emerges because of it.
Self-Portrait as a Pop Culture Reference
by Natalie Wee
Originally published in Split This Rock, Natalie Wee provided this poem as a piece that fits the theme of “growing pains”
I was born in 1993, the year Regie Cabico became the first
Asian American to win the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam.
I want these facts to mean something to each other,
the way a room is just a room until love or its inverse
tells me what to do with the person standing in it.
Once, I stood on a street corner & a white woman, stunned
by the horizon I passed through to be here, put her hands
on my face to relearn history. I was named after a movie star
who died by drowning, A Streetcar Named Desire gone now
to water, & split an ocean every year to see my mother again.
The first man I loved named me after a dead American
& crushed childhood into a flock of hands.
The women I loved taught me that water cures anything
that ails, given enough thirst. I speak thirst,
sharpen the tongue that slithered through continents
& taught my ancestors to pray its name. I pray its name
& so undertake the undertaker, it preys my Mandarin name
so I watch Chinese dramas with bright-eyed bodies
to forestall forgetting my own. I’ve watched my skin
turned fragrant ornament thrown over women
the colour of surrender & they were praised for wearing it.
I wake wearing my skin & praise myself for waking.
My skin, this well-worn hide I fold into a boat
sturdy enough to bisect any body of water,
was made from light breaking through my mother’s hands--
my mother lifting her fingers to the sky & inventing
a story where she touched & swallowed it whole.
I’ve swallowed every name I was given
to spit them back better. To write is to cradle memory
& creation myth both & emerge with the fact
of your hands. I praise the first book
that touched me because it was beautiful,
because it was written by a stranger born looking
just a little like me & that made him beautiful, & in it
I find every person I’ve loved into godhood,
tunnelling through the page & beyond the echo
of those beloved trees allowing breath: their shadows
blurring into a wave, rich & urgent, to greet me.
the colour of surrender & they were praised for wearing it.
I wake wearing my skin & praise myself for waking.
My skin, this well-worn hide I fold into a boat
sturdy enough to bisect any body of water,
was made from light breaking through my mother’s hands--
my mother lifting her fingers to the sky & inventing
a story where she touched & swallowed it whole.
I’ve swallowed every name I was given
to spit them back better. To write is to cradle memory
& creation myth both & emerge with the fact
of your hands. I praise the first book
that touched me because it was beautiful,
because it was written by a stranger born looking
just a little like me & that made him beautiful, & in it
I find every person I’ve loved into godhood,
tunnelling through the page & beyond the echo
of those beloved trees allowing breath: their shadows
blurring into a wave, rich & urgent, to greet me.
Artwork by Gobelyn
twenty is approaching
by Nila
i’m turning 20 this year and
i’m five again running through the grass that stands up to my knees, the weeds poke at my ankles and the wind whooshes past me and all i hear is laughter and someone chasing me "நிலா , don’t go too far”, i turn around and
i’m twelve learning my legs can carry me further than this mind can race, in 15 seconds this tiny body travels 100 m and everyone is left in the dust behind me, i run with the wind, i run where the wind carries me
i’m fifteen and that boy mentions that my stomach feels squishy, isn’t it supposed to feel that way? but everyone is laughing and it becomes a regular occurrence. he pokes and says squishy, laughs and turns away, i grip my sides and wonder when being soft became a bad thing
i’m seventeen and soft is something you don’t show, you’re supposed to be
stone-faced and unphased by the world but the weight piles up over time and there’s only so many tears i can shed, so i learn that running helps the soft disappear. it helps me cope with my malleability, keep a straight face that they can’t see through.
suddenly i’m nineteen and twenty is approaching in the distance, closer and closer with each step i take so i turn around and run against the wind willing my feet to take me as fast as i ran down that soccer field when i was thirteen but the wind pushes against me twice as hard and i’m two months closer to not being a teen anymore,
twenty is approaching and that five-year-old girl in me wants to run in the wind, the twelve-year-old girl wants to run with the wind. the seventeen-year-old girl wants to run to feel and nineteen-year-old me wants to run away from all of it.
twenty is approaching and every day passes a little faster and every night i sleep a little longer and my two months have turned into four, twenty is approaching and all my problems from my teen years are sitting in my diary unresolved and twenty is approaching and nothing seems to slow it down and twenty is approaching and —…
twenty is approaching.
and she blooms
by Shaki Sutharsan
Am I of age yet or do I still have far to go
Will the timer ding
A flag be flown
A large hand beckon
Me onto the road so ruddy and unapproached
Has my body already gone from seed to sprout to bloom
A petal waiting to be separated from her sisters or a stem snapped in half
Then why do I feel like the weed that knows no bounds but no beauty
And my mind is flayed open like the etherized abscess it has become
A gaping wound relentlessly cut open by a ruthless hand
When even the sun feels dim inside
And the flame struggles to burn against that hand that seeks to snuff it out
I’m going before I’ve healed
My feet hit the cold floor and it is shocking, unknown
The coats and wheels fade out as I run and run and run
I fly back as I pass by
And the fourteen looks better than the seventeen and the twelve looks better than the sixteen
And the boys they sing into my ears and the wound of my mind throbs
And the girls I have not seen, they sit in the stilted spaces
The wound of my mind it grows and grows
They are flung off the edge of the cliff as soon as they are born
We join them two decades late
Hands grasping at the rocks in vain but lacking the strength to climb
And so we cling onto the remnants of the earth
Hoping that mother will hold us afloat
The decisions weigh heavy and I cannot suck in
The next breath that will put me forward
But I rest
And I do
Take my own hand and step onto the road not taken
Brush the dead skin off my shoulders
Feel their hands against them instead
The wound of my mind it heals and it heals
And the weed that I am it blooms and it blooms
Stuck
by Nila
of all these thoughts racing in my head
pomegranates and finals running round and round
the only thing that seems to stick is— you
you stick to everything in my life, like the syrup i accidentally spilled this morning
you’ve stuck to my clothes, my thoughts, my phone
you’re stuck to me, holding me in place
three years in this place
three years later, i’m at the same desk (stuck)
different hair, different subjects, same thoughts:
pomegranates, finals, running (stuck)
i’m sticky all over
i’ve rinsed with soap but there is always
a subtle tackiness left over
forever hinting at the remnants of— you
Artwork by Gobelyn
Non-binary
by Sally Zori
This is how I wear me
But I’m still not what you see
I’m not who you’ve been told to
think I should be
Artwork by Sunnie
Artwork by Rue
Ode To Growth pt 1
by Jess
once, i thought the only way forward was to take the good and stash away the bad
for a rainy day you hope never comes. i wanted people to only remember the good in me,
hoping that saintly acts would somehow mask away my sins. but i’ve began to appreciate
the truth that we are all deeply flawed. and to forgive myself for not having an airbrushed
persona. it is not a fair way to live by trying to find the good in everything while casting a
blind eye to the pain. life is not exclusively a dream or nightmare. on a good day, it’s both.
it is a universal adaptation that we have selective memory. but what if i want to choose to
cherish both the beauty and suffering? is it selfish that i want people to remember the times
i have collapsed and fallen short of a pedestal because i want to know that they still choose
me anyways.
i want to love wholly.
i want to give wholly.
i want to learn wholly.
this means to forgive first, to say sorry first, to say i love you first, to be vulnerable first.
i want to lay all my cards face-up and still feel like a winner even if i don’t have a jack-
pot to offer. i want to walk with my heart on my sleeve, welcoming the inevitable wear and
tear. i want to give myself to others until seeds of love and warmth grow to be bigger than i
ever will be.
In The Midst Of; A Woman’s Riposte
by Vidhya Srijesh
My Trans Body
by Sally Zori
An exploration into the unknown.
Through spaces with no room for me
…a Joke.
Fear. Elation.
Nerves. Frustration.
Undoing shame.
Healing harm.
Violence.
Surgery.
Oppressive systems to disarm
In my body
I stand.
Custom built.
By Me
For Me
With radical self love,
My brave gift.
To: Me
Every misshapen birthmark, miniscule mole, sun freckle, and curly hair.
A testament.
Every earned wrinkle, etched stretch mark, and tender scar.
An overcoming.
I
Live
Feel
Breathe
My Body
I
Push
Break
Rest
Grow
My beautiful body
A fact.
That no one can contest.
That I’m learning to love
and know that I’m blessed.
Artwork by Rue
Ode To Growth pt 2
by Jess
we do not ridicule a child for falling
when they are learning to walk. so why
do you mercilessly shame, humiliate and
berate yourself for stumbling when learning how to live?
sometimes the days will feel like a
dance that you don’t know the steps to. you will stammer and trip over your words and feelings like the clumsy fall of a bird into its first attempt at flying. at the end of it all, you cross your fingers that all along you’ve been dancing to your own song and not one meant for another.
ultimately what grounds you during
freefall is the beating of your own heart;
the reliable rhythm of something doing
everything to keep you standing tall when
you don’t.
Artwork by Bella
Happyness
by Bella
“...Uhh, yeah, I am fine,” I muttered
“Yea?” she questioned.
“Yea, honest,” I lied.
“We’ve missed you, and...”
“...your father is worried about you too,” she continued.
“You don’t need to say that, I know he doesn’t.”
“Xin Xin, don’t say that, he does.”
“Ma, why did you call me?” There was a long pause. For a moment, I thought she hung up.
“New Years is two months.”
“So?”
“Your dad is making shui zhu yu, your favourite ”
“I don’t even like fish anymore,” I said coldly.
“There are other foods, come and eat with us,” she said softly.
“I have food Ma, if you’re calling just to tell me to see Ba, then I’m going to hang up.”
“New Years is soon...”
I hang up.
***********
“Baaaaaaaaaa!” I yelled. I was seven years old, and it was three days before Chinese New
Years. Ma was reading, I was drawing, and Ba was in the kitchen putting up a lantern.
“Baaaaaaaaaa!”
“Shuuush, too loud,” Ma said.
Wei 2
“But....I want to show him.” I waved a piece of flimsy craft paper back and forth, and on it,
were scribbles.
“What did you draw?”
“It’s us! Look, that’s Ba, that’s me, and that’s you Ma!”
“What does it say here?” she points the letters on top.
“H..a..p..p..y..n..e..s..s! ” I exclaimed
“There is no ‘y’ in happiness.”
“Why?”
“Well—”
“We all want to be happy right?” she continued.
“Yea, I am happy, are you happy?”
“...I am happy that you are happy Xin Xin.”
“Is Ba happy?”
“Maybe, why don’t you ask him?”
“Okay! I can show him my drawing.” I jumped off the sofa and ran to Ba.
“Are you happy Ba?”
“What?” he turns around, still holding the bright red lantern.
“Are you happy?” I asked.
“Chinese New Years is coming up, Buddha is going to bring us good fortune.” He sets the
lantern aside and kneels down.
“We can finally get you some new clothes,” he said, placing both his hands on my arms.
“But are you happy?” I asked again.
“I am happy that you are happy.”
I have repeatedly asked them throughout my childhood, but the answer was always the same.
***********
“Ba! Look at this poem I wrote,” I ran up to his bed and handed him a piece of paper. I was fourteen
years old, having just learned poetry in school.
Happyness
It contains he,
But doesn't contain I.
Y?
“What is this? Go study.”
“You don’t like it?”
“You spelt happiness wrong, doesn’t make sense.”
“But don’t you see, I am using the letters inside happyness”
“That isn’t how you spell it”
“I know how to spell happiness, but the poem won’t work if it’s spelt otherwise”
“Then it’s too forced, doesn’t work.”
“...it does.” Tears started to fall.
“How? Why are you crying?”
“It just does, and I am not crying.”
“If you like it then you like it, but I just don’t think it works.”
For someone who yearned for his approval, those words really hurt.
***********
“Ba, can we buy this one?” I asked. I was eleven years old. The three of us were at No Frills, and I was
holding a Lunchable.
“How much?”
“Three dollars.”
“What is it?”
“It’s like a lunch thing, you bring it to school and stuff.”
“This gives you so little, besides, you have lunch,” he pointed to the various bags of vegetables
in our cart.
“But, all my friends eat it at school.”
“Xin Xin, we aren’t your friends.”
“I want to be like them.”
“We don’t have that money.”
“It’s only three dollars! Why are you so stingy?”
“Xin Xin! Don’t say that!” Ma interjected.
“I’m sorry,” I quickly apologized. My head dropped to the ground, and I refused to look up.
“Do you really want one?” Ba said.
“No, it’s okay,” I lied.
“We will buy it when it goes on sale,” he placed his hand on my shoulders, and we continued
walking through the grocery.
Later that day, we sat at the table, me beside ma, and ba on the other side, having dinner. The tension
was still there from hours ago, and the small room was filled with the sound of chewing, creaking of
the chairs, the lightbulbs and the smell of garlic. Ba was rubbing his eyes, shifting back and forth, trying to get comfortable.
“Zhen me la?” Ma asked, a hint of irritation.
“I’m fine, just old, nothing works anymore,” Ba replied.
“Why not see a doctor?” I said.
“They are just going to tell me to rest, no time.”
“Well, you should still go anyways, my teacher said we should take care of our body.”
“I breathe, I’m healthy, don’t need a doctor to tell me that”
“Well...”
“Just...drop it, Xin Xin,” Ma says.
***********
“I got accepted Ba.” I was seventeen and had just received an acceptance letter. Filled with
dreams of becoming the world’s next “it” poet, I never realized how naive I could be.
“For engineering?
“What? No, I told you, English.”
“No English.”
“But this is what I want to do!”
“Not a career,” he said sternly.”
“But...”
“Have you met a poet with lots of money?”
“No, but they do what they love!”
“Do it as a hobby, not work.”
“But Ba, I don’t want to learn engineering, what even is it”
“You think I like to work at factory? Do you think your mother likes to get paid what she gets
paid? We are working these shitty labour jobs so that you can go to university and not end up like us,
and what are you doing? Applying for English?”
“But...”
“No more, I have to go to work.”
***********
“You... you had no right to do that!” I screamed. My eyes fixed on him. This was the moment
everything fell apart.
“You are too young to understand,” Ba replied calmly.
“How could you? Who gave you the right? I’m eighteen!” The first tear landed like the first
punch of a boxing fight.
“I am your father, and you were about to make a huge mistake, I was looking out for you.”
“Who are you to judge what’s a good and bad decision! Who gave you the right to go behind
my back!”
“I was helping you. You were about to waste four years of your life learning a language you
already know.”
“Unbelievable....you are so ignorant. I am ashamed to call you my dad sometimes.”
***********
“Xin Xin, I read your poetry,” Ma called.
“And?”
“They were nice. Your dad even bought your entire book.”
“Why? It’s all a waste of money for him anyway.”
“Don’t say like that! He liked it, and I liked it. We are proud of you.” Ma’s voice broke a little.
“Thanks, and you didn’t have to buy it, I could have....just given you one.”
“Why don’t you read some of it at our Chinese New Year’s party, you have some nieces and
nephews who would like it.”
“No Ma, I already told you last week that I am not going. I don’t want to see him.”
Wei 7
“...Xin Xin.”
“No.” I hang up.
“Is he still mad at me?” I asked. I was twenty-four years old and had hadn’t been home for six
years.
“No, he loves you. Always asking how you are and stuff,” Ma replied.
“It’s just, you say that he loves me, but I don’t feel it. Where is the love? I don’t see it, I can’t
touch it, where is it?”
“In his heart.”
“But where? I don’t feel it.”
“Xin Xin, he does love you.”
“You don’t have to say that anymore, you don’t need to pretend that he likes me, and I am
going to stop caring about him and what he thinks.”
“No, he is just stubborn and you know that.
“I know he doesn’t care.”
“...Why don’t you come home for the new years, and talk to him.”
“Last time I tried, he ignored me.”
“You need time to mend over, small steps.”
“If he loves me, he is going to take that step first.”
***********
“Xin Xin, please come home,” she begs.
“No, not unless he is there.”
“He is not there anymore.”
Silence. For a brief moment, all I could hear is the sound of my own breath. Many scenarios and
interpretations come into my head, trying to avoid the worst.
“Like...at work?”
“No, he is not here anymore.”
“What do you mean?” we both know what it means, but it feels better pretending.
“He was sick for a while, and...this morning...he...” Ma begins sniffling on the other end of the
line.
“That’s why you were trying to get me home?”
“He didn’t say anything but he missed you, he wanted to see you Xin Xin.”
“If you told me he was sick, I would have... I would have came back.”
“I was going to, but this morning, he had some complications and I rushed him to the hospital,
and....”
“He didn’t make it?”
“No.”
“Hey, do you think I can read some of my poems on new years?”
“I would love to hear them.”
***********
I walked in and looked around the kitchen, the red lantern has faded to a muted orange, and
everything felt older and smaller than I had remembered. Ba’s copy of my poems lay open on the
table as if he had only left for a moment. On the legend were notes and translations for words he
didn’t know. I picked up his copy, sat down on the chairs that no longer creaks, and the tears
followed.
Happiness
Such a selfish word.
For me, you gave me all.
For you, I offered nothing.
Cantu
by Haleluya Hailu
It’s six in the morning and I notice how the sun glows differently when it’s time to do something. My mom’s sweet voice draws me down the stairs and into the kitchen table. I waited weeks and weeks for the summer heat to start to melt into cool fall mornings, where I can smell the scent of pens and paper and taste the embarrassment of forgetting my homework. I could feel my mom tug, part and pull my hair into place. I can hear the way her smile glows when she tells me about her first days and how I was going to have so much fun today.
“ወደ ትምህርት ቤት መሄድ ጊዜው አሁን ነው” My mom whispered. I ran my feet toward and out the door. I made mom practice walking to school with me so I knew which way to go if I got lost and I wrote her phone number inside my lunch box. We ran and played tag until we were in front of the classroom where I’d start my quest for knowledge.
A little girl with hay-coloured hair stood in front of me with a smile, until she noticed me in her presence. “Did it hurt?” She said with her hand on her hip.
“What did?” I covered the scrape on my elbow from losing a foot race. I wanted her to think I was worthy of her time. The way she spoke said otherwise.
“That....” She points at my hair. I felt cold and grey. “It looks like weird, like why does it fall like that? Like, no offense but only villagers do that so bugs don’t get caught in their hair.” Then I said nothing. I walked into the classroom and picked a corner seat with my notebooks as my deskmate. It was nothing, it wa-
“That....” She points at my hair. I felt cold and grey. “It looks like weird, like why does it fall like that? Like, no offense but only villagers do that so bugs don’t get caught in their hair.” Then I said nothing. I walked into the classroom and picked a corner seat with my notebooks as my deskmate. It was nothing, it wa-
...s just the first picture day of high school! I woke up to my phone vibrating and it was bright and early. I woke up to a sticky note at the edge of my bed, “መልካም ቀን ይሁንልዎ”. I haven’t seen mom because of the graveyard shifts and her recovering after them. I walked up to my mirror and plugged in the flat iron. I hated the way it hissed when I watched it turn my ringlets flat. The
smell of burnt hair tingles my nose. I’m fine. This is fine. I look fine. I can do this every day until I die and my hair will still turn back at the stroke of midnight like I’m cinderella. Only thing missing is glass slippers. I woke up to the sound of music downstairs inviting me to breakfast. I saw a sweater laying on the floor of my bedroom, the only thing that looked almost organized in the sea of mess that surrounded it.
“Ready for your day?” My mom said, her smile was warm like honey. She was still wearing her scrubs and I could see the night she had from the way there were shadows below her eyes.
“Of course,” I replied. I sat by her on the floor as she tugged, parted and pulled my hair. We caught up on the moments between the last time we had a free second like this. The car drive felt different now that I was allowed to drive. It all feels different now that I can do everything she
Cantu.
*It’s time to go to school now
**It’s going to be a good day
Artwork by Christine Raganit
Vanity
by Tashana Poblete
Artwork by Makha Zia
The Body I Once Lived In
by Makha Zia
the canopy in my belly.
she came out of
circus tents within all organs.
spinning, hurdling
into unknown obstacle.
an open wound after
another open wound.
my body is a freak show.
puts on entertainment
even when it is hurting.
bleeding red honey and a dragon’s near breath,
and i washed her away, you know.
of course i did.
what else do you do with leftovers?
what else do you do to your nightmares?
now, i imagine her thrashing onto a shore
and rising to be reborn:
clowns, monsters, or drenched gargoyles.
with wings and dreams
and singing in sleeps,
and i wonder if in the future i can tell my mother about this.
no matter how i explain it,
she will say “i’m disappointed”.
i will never tell her
“i was too”.
the curtains will rise.
the show will go on
and i do not know
if i she will ever perform again:
my angel in a torn leotard.
but she put on a show.
a beautiful one of that.
i wish i could have
watched the encore.
Artist Bios
Contributors
Sabine Gaind (she/her) is a South-Asian aspiring writer. Originally from Toronto, she is a sophomore at the University of British Columbia. The poem “for the archive (or: question for a future self)” is an exploration of the uncertainty of growing up and an expression of bittersweet nostalgia.
Instagram: @sabine.gaind
Piece: “For the Archive”
Shaneela Boodoo (she/her) is an artist and designer currently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her work uses design, installation, collage and photography to communicate carefully constructed narratives which use reconstructed memories to explore facets of information and manufactured vulnerability. These memories come from aspects of personal relationships that deal with larger intersecting themes of colonialism, displacement and womanhood.
Instagram: @shanleeboo
Piece: “Imagined Relics”
When we consider the female nude, especially in the age of the selfie, “imagined relics 1” deals with obscurity and dysphoria, and current aesthetics surrounding pleasure in a brown woman’s body. The gaze is of the artists, yet parts of her body and face are hidden from view. This portrait, which can be viewed as a personal expression of pleasure is romanticized with flowers and dreamy lighting. However, anxious repeated mantras float around the images that show the doubt behind this small action of personal pleasure. They are pretty images, but ultimately, they are very controlled and not real expressions of intimacy for the artist. This is not an empowering expression, and has fearful undertones. It is a longing for true vulnerability and bodily autonomy as well as an attempt at having those things through images that resemble westernized “female empowerment”
Natalie Wee (she/her) is a community builder, writer and editor. She was the first runner-up for the 2020 Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize, the winner of the 2019 Blue Mesa Review Summer Contest for poetry, and has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She writes about race, gender, queerness, and her experiences as a non-citizen. Her debut poetry collection, Our Bodies and Other Fine Machines, is set for reprint this coming summer with Teh People Studio.
Instagram: @revengerice
Pieces: “Growing Pains with Natalie Wee”, “Self-Portrait as Pop Culture Reference”
Nila (she/her) is a tamil stem student currently residing in the gta area. She started writing as an outlet to help her feel her emotions without letting them consume her. She writes about being a minority, choosing love, and the weight of her world.
Instagram: @lunanila_
Pieces: “twenty is approaching”, “stuck”
Sally Zori (They/Them) is a transgender Iraqi multi-disciplinary artist born in Baghdad, raised in the United Arab Emirates and different parts of Canada. They pursued an early career in music, performing and touring which has taken them all over Canada and the world. They continue to play stages and theatres all over the world with different bands, orchestras, musicals, theatre shows, and was once lucky enough to have the opportunity (NYE 2008) to be the percussionist for Aretha Franklin. Sally is currently exploring new ways of expressing themselves through video, film, composing, and storytelling. Their poems, “Non-binary” and “My Trans Body”, are an attempt at expressing their unique challenges and experiences of being a trans Arab in a binary and predominantly white world. On the horizon, Sally is working on a project that will share the story of their experience as a third culture kid and finding Home.
Instagram: @sallyzori
Pieces: “Non-Binary”, “My Trans Body”
Jess (she/her) is a Chinese undergraduate student who dabbles in writing out her experiences and thinking processes as an emotional & creative outlet. She attempts to draw from storytelling and imagery to describe what it means to her to grow and mature, in both our relationships with ourselves and others.
Instagram: @jesszhng
Pieces: “An Ode to Growth Pt 1”, “An Ode to Growth Pt 2”
Ms. Vidhya Srijesh (she/her) is a visual artist. The painting In The Midst Of; A Woman’s Riposte depicts the struggles and pain a woman faces in her community.
Instagram: @articulate_with_sri
Piece: “In the Midst Of; A Woman’s Riposte”
Tashana Poblete (she/her) is a Filipino-Canadian artist originally from traditional lands covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit, otherwise known as the Greater Toronto Area. She studied visual arts at a specialty arts secondary school prior to specializing in biological sciences in university (BSc, University of Guelph; MSc, University of British Columbia). She is currently based on traditional Coast Salish territories, Vancouver, British Columbia.
Instagram: @tashana.art
Piece: “Vanity”
Haleluya Hailu (she/her) is a multifaceted creative and activist based in the unseeded territory of Vancouver BC. Her poetry and short story writing focuses mostly on her experiences as an immigrant and black woman growing up in Canada.
The experiences being split between two cultures give a unique tone behind her endeavours.
Instagram: @haleluyahailu | Twitter: @winterkilljoy
Piece: “Cantu”
Editorial Team
Editor-in-Chief:
Iqra Abid (she/her) is a young writer based in Canada. She is currently a student at McMaster University studying Psychology Neuroscience, and Behaviour. She is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Kiwi Collective. Her work can be found in various publications such as Stone Fruit Magazine, Tiny Spoon Lit Magazine, Scorpion Magazine, and others.
Instagram: @thesunbelongstothestars
Piece: “Growing Pains with Natalie Wee”
Lead Editor:
Darnie Tran/Sunnie (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Hamilton, Ontario. They have accepted various roles in many theatre productions, as an actor, musician, stage manager and director. In addition to theatre, Sunnie plays a variety of instruments and creates music under the name sunniesounds. They are currently a student at Randolph College for the Performing Arts and are experimenting with other mediums of art such as photography and photo editing.
Instagram: @darns.mp3 @sunniesounds
Piece: “Non-Binary artwork”
Graphic Designer & Illustrator:
Bella (she/her) is a Chinese-Canadian artist based in Toronto, Ontario. She is currently studying graphic design at York University. She is the media curator and graphic designer for Kiwi Collective. In her free time, she likes to read, draw and go on Pinterest. You can find some of her drawings on her Instagram: @allen_wrench1.
Piece: “Happyness”
Graphic Designer:
Isha (she/they) is a South Asian artist based in the Unceded Coast Salish Territories, otherwise known as Vancouver, British Columbia. They are currently a graphic design student, exploring what it means to visually communicate ideas.
Writers:
Shaki Sutharsan (she/her) is a nineteen-year-old, Tamil, Canadian writer based in Toronto, Ontario. She is an Editor for the Kiwi Collective and contributes to her blog, Kutti Corner. Currently, she attends Ryerson University where she is studying Journalism.
Instagram: @shakisutharsan
Piece: “And She Blooms”
Makha Zia (she/her) is passionate about the environment, social injustices, and banana bread. Mak dreams of finding a way to help the world in one way or another. While she figures out how to do that, she spends most of her time reading, beneath trees or in the ocean, and writing about love, love, and more about love.
Instagram: @constuhllations, @riptdes
Pieces: “The Body I Once Lived In”, “The Body I Once Lived In artwork”
Artists:
Madelyn (she/they) aka Gobelyn is a twenty-one-year-old queer digital illustrator based in San Diego, California. She is currently studying to get her BFA in Illustration with a focus in Concept Art at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. Aside from illustrating, some of their other interests include astrology, graphic novels, and all things spooky.
Instagram: @gobelyn.png
Pieces: “Twenty is Approaching artwork”, “Stuck artwork”
Rue (she/her) is a space cowboy, concerned primarily with the everyday tragedies of ordinary life. She quit smoking before she barely even started while studying English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Brighton. Later, she got an MA in Publishing and Creative Writing from Kingston University, London. When she grows up, she hopes to become Raymond Carver. In the interim, she would very much like to know if you have a light.
Instagram: @ruethename
Pieces: “An Ode to Growth Pt 1 artwork”, An Ode to Growth Pt 2 artwork”
Christine Raganit (she/they/siya) is a proud queer, Filipino interdisciplinary artist. When she’s not creating, she loves to spend her time listening to music, daydreaming, or going on adventures under the sun.
Instagram: @tinragstudio.
Piece: “Cantu artwork”
and you, thank you for all the support