Nameless

by Ruchi Acharya

Lavender never dies just remember
The frozen black coffee
‎‏‏ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎still lies on the table
for I was waiting for you to say first forever.

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Happy Ending

by Jasna Dimitrijević (translated from Serbian by John K. Cox)

The rain woke me up. It intervened in my dream, and at first I didn’t know where in the world I was. Then I was swimming in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. I know it was the Pacific, because I recognized it from shows on TV. I swam through turquoise and crystal. That’s what they say in the travel pieces, turquoise and crystal. From my hips hang decorative beads attached to my bathing suit. I remember it from photographs. My first bathing suit, a kid’s one. The clouds burst as I fix the knot in my hair. Heavy drops plop onto my scalp and my outstretched hands. They grow thicker and heavier until water covers the entire world. It envelops me like an endless hug, an impenetrable womb. I kick my legs around so that I can swim vertically, and at that point I wake up. That was a shame. I would like to learn how to swim. But I was certain, at least, that the ocean wasn’t the answer.

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We’ll know

by Marija Rakić Mimica (translated by Tanja Radmilo)

Today I’m going to cheat on my husband. I’m going to make love to a man that I’m not allowed to love. I’ll meet the morning after blinded by my act, which I’ll carry with me for a long time; after showering I’ll recognize his smell, that will remind me of us, I’ll carry collected guilt and bitterness as I walk down the street and, finally, I’ll bring them into my apartment with me.

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Keep wonder alive and kicking.

The Amazine community’s manifesto of sorts.

The world can be a weird, bittersweet place, so full of pain and so full of beauty. Humanity is weirder still, capable of such atrocities and foolishness, ignorance and hypocrisy, as well as amazing scientific discoveries and works of art that take our breath away, even more, humanity is capable of profound connection, companionship and joy. It aches to be alive, but that ache is sweet sometimes, isn’t it? You know the clichés: the flowers grow in dirt, the earth longs for rain, there is no butterfly without a transformation, no light without the dark, the sky excels its art only with the setting of the sun and the time right before the sunrise is the gloomiest.

We don’t deny any of it. We are deciding to embrace it all and by that open our eyes, minds, hearts and spirits for the many wonders, joys, beauties, uncertainties and paradoxes of this world. Be in search of the crack Cohen sang about. Because we can be disappointed by the world as we know it, even expect it to end pretty soon, and still keep on creating the one we want to live in. Push one word, thought, question, song, scene, story, hug and laugh at a time for the world that would actually be worth fighting for.

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