August Issue: Poetry Section

1. Letter from the Other Side of Silence — Stephanie L. Harper
2. Because The Deacon Couldn’t Sleep — Dina Friedman
3. One Day At A Time– Kavita Ratna
4. YOU ARE– Mahvash Mohtadullah
5. Gypsy Woman– George Bakola
6. For Angie– Rachel Ikins
7. Rise And Fall– Lynn White
8. Canary’s Plea– Agaigbe Uhembansha
9. The Lost Pages– Sabreen Ahmed
10. VOICES: Three Haikus by Daiypayan Nair
11. Lipstick– Kalpana Singh Chitnis
12. She Rides The Bus– Marianne Tefft
13. There Is A Desire– Trijita Mukherjee
14. My Inner Voice– Shailja Sharma

My Inner Voice— Shailja Sharma

Part I

I brought some parts of me

But forgot some back in the homeland

The air, the water, the land, the bugs, and the ice-cream

Everything was different here

The monkey bars were too high

I could not climb them so stayed away mostly

My lunch smelled different than others

So, I did not open it mostly

I spoke weird, but that was an easy fix

I tried to stay quiet mostly

I felt I was in a movie of aliens

Like an “invisible” because no one noticed me mostly

Except sometimes they noticed me a bit too much

Now that I’m a grown person, I think

How kids threw fits when the teacher changed

Their seats in the classrooms

For me the continent was changed

And I had to tweak all the time

My voice was the only kind thing

That helped me.

Shailja Sharma (Ph.D.), USA, is a mental health provider and a multilingual author. Apart from scholarly publication and editorial service, her literary writings have been widely published. Dr. Sharma’s publications have appeared in many literary journals/forums of repute across USA, Canada, UK, and Asia. Her writings have appeared in #1 Best Selling anthologies published nationally and internationally. Dr. Sharma’s poetry book, “Dear Mama: An Immigrant’s Secret Cry,” has been critically acclaimed.

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