a crack

Sebastion Chang

when i was still chewing my sleeves,   
          and searching for the spirit of my uncle ho-tae   
                         in dungeons and dragons,   

                                                           —[i] cracked a glass tabletop  
an act that was so real, it hurt my fingers,   
          it violently folded the mahogany imagination   
                         like the air in fall leaves.  

the boys peered into the dusty velvet crevice,   
          and looked at me,   

                         and 10-thousand moments from now,   
                                                                                    my father is crying.  

in this very rare dream—   
          the silence of the rouge tablecloth is still moving over the horizon  

the breaths are like   
          words and the tears are like gold.  

in our new house, the crack in my family breathes old paint   
          the smell of bloodless dishwashing,   
                         of marble pasta intermingling with the carcass of a stuffed animal,   

          it is opening   
          and yet—   

i am sitting at that glass table  
my mother to my left, my father to my right, my sister to my front.  

we are all gripping a piece of that stupendous crack in the glass so tightly, 
that our hands bleed and tears fall,     

          as if remembering monsoon season in korea  

we are pulling it open so that we can see each other

          and the silence is largest, no, longest,
the fragrance of wet autumn leaves warm,
closest, strongest.

Sebastian Chang is a Korean-Indian artist making music with friends, writing strange poetry, and figuring out how to be happy. He would love to have more conversations about mental health and (identity) politics, and can be found writing multilingual bars, beatboxing, and dancing to K-Pop. He likes his girlfriend and is scared of the dark.

Body Without Organs

Amelia Ao

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Amelia is currently a first-year at Harvard College.

Microgestin fe 1/20

Lulu Xue Rodgers

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Lulu Rodgers is an interdisciplinary artist taking inspirations from the past. Her work explores the gaps between perception and social cultural standards.

We are not yours.

Eric J. Cheng
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I’ve only ever been exotified or rejected for my Asian skin
By the racist white man.
‍
Parties, Exchanges, Grindr convos (or the lack thereof after being blocked). The first time I experienced it was when I was 18. My first date:
“I want to move to California. The weather is nice, and the Asian guys are... sexyyy.”
‍
I sat with the remark in my innocence and took it as a compliment. I’d never been called beautiful… This felt like it? Standing in my Old Navy jeans and American Eagle tee, I forced myself to smile.
‍
Maybe it’s the idea they have of me. Weak. Small. Un-masculine and un-strong. I am not un-strong. I have calves that I’ve been told can choke a man to death. I acquired them from years of swimming
Which yes my Chinese dad signed me up for when I was a kid. He was convinced it’s the only sport where you cannot hurt yourself.
‍
If only he had known that hurt is not exclusive to sport. In a race where the fastest and mightiest can make you feel so used, so disposable, it doesn’t matter how tirelessly you tread. At the end of the day, you are treading for them— there to please or be discarded.
‍
It hurts a lot.
‍
Most single 23-year-olds wade in their loneliness, ask themselves why they can’t find a boyfriend. I’m done with that. Nowadays, I don’t let myself think about having another to tell me what I am to them. Another to make me get on my knees or get out of their way.
I’m done feeling ugly. I’m done existing in a pendulum that wades between two extremes and never falls in the center that is just being seen as a human.
‍
Exotified or rejected, it’s all the same—
Stripped and seen as disposable.
Here to massage you
Here to comfort you
Here to be subjugated
By your sticks and guns and other pathetic phallic things.
We are not yours to desert and demolish. We are people.

Eric J. Cheng is an actor and writer based in LA. He graduated from Harvard in 2020 and creates stories about the AAPI and queer experiences.

Remodel Minority

Jeanna Shaw

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Jeanna is a freshman at the college most likely studying Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology. She is passionate about Asian American advocacy and loves finding ways to integrate advocacy, biology, and other ~quirky~ musings in her art.