EMPOWERMENT, WOMEN'S HEALTH

You’re Doing Brown Skin All Wrong

Featured Illustration: Dissirama Laba As brown girls, we have to come to the basic understanding (and agreement) that our skin care needs are on a completely different playing field than caucasian skin. Everything about it is different; skin conditions, issues, concerns, and even genetic makeup. Before this one beautiful invention called the smartphone, it was […]

Read more
EMPOWERMENT, LGBTQ+, MENTAL HEALTH

An Exciting Life for the Depressed Mind

Trigger Warning: Mentions of suicidal thoughts and depression . . . My depression began at the age of twelve. I remember looking up one morning after I had washed my face wishing I were dead. It seemed that a tired dejected little Black girl’s face followed me around. Only her face has now grown into […]

Read more
POETRY & PROSE, POLITICS, WORLD ISSUES

Am I Lucky?

Featured Image: Mahmoud Abu Zeid Am I lucky I am not American? The guns rattling in my head, The banners, the posters, The Black Lives Matter The kids shaking the country till the government falls to its knees.   Am I lucky I am not Yemeni? Constantly fighting the hunger, the pain, the hurt, The […]

Read more
MENTAL HEALTH, POETRY & PROSE, RELIGION

My Religion

Featured Image: Drew Beamer Pray. Grasp these beads, they are your home For the temple lies within Pray. Sit beneath His feet Your body belongs to Him Terminate her image Her life in your mind Pray. Let the flame protect you Its gift in strength Ancestral intentions Words birthed upon infancy Burdens paralleled in honors […]

Read more
LIFE, POETRY & PROSE

The Portrait of Life

On a dark and cold December night that mystified the looming melancholy stretching its wings over the starry blanket, yellow street lights flogging the obscurity and the silenced sounds hovering over the colony away from the hullaballoo of the old city. Leaning on a chaise lounge next to the foggy glass window particular of winter […]

Read more
POETRY & PROSE, THE ARTS

Validation

I don’t know why I seek validation from the one who only sees me as a number, from the one who reads my name simply as a word with no life attached to it. I don’t know why I seek validation from a society who shushes away cries of change, telling those cries that they’re […]

Read more
EMPOWERMENT, LIFE

Rising Up From Failure

Roger Crawford once said, “Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” From my erstwhile experiences, I have ultimately realized that there will always be incoming challenges ahead of us. These inescapable encounters precisely measure the range of our capabilities and moral values. To effectively prepare for these impending tasks, we primarily need […]

Read more