Stefanie Yeo

Contributor Biography

Stefanie Yeo was born and raised in Singapore, and subsists on a steady diet of weird popular culture, cat photos, and Coca-Cola. After getting her bachelor’s degree in Sociology, she now creates branded content campaigns for a tech news media company in Asia, and spends her available time pursuing her next creative breakthrough.

seven

i.
runs through you like ice
the slow pulse heartbeat tattooed, one, two

ii.
you cut yourself open digging half-moons into skin
your mind runs like locomotives, and jet planes, and screams

iii.
rage, rage against the dimness, the
barely-there twinkles of satellites in bruised skies

iv.
the give, the take, the regret, the resignation of fate
wishing, screaming, wanting, longing

v.
for the slow, sinking ichor touching fire
to the lighter fluid in your veins

vi.
thrashing against confines, tearing at the nets
cocooned and wild, claws out, breaths slow

vii.
the fall, and then silence, ringing in the night when
you realise that all good things—

Zhiyou Low

Contributor Biography

Zhiyou Low is an undergraduate student pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as well as a minor in creative writing at Case Western Reserve University.

The Soup Bowl

During my walk in the park we used to frequent,
I noticed sunlight weaving through the cracks in the clouds
like golden threads shimmering and dancing
upon a worn, gray blanket that has begun to fray.

It reminded me of the time you explained what kintsugi was:
the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery
by mending the cracks with powdered gold,
the art of embracing the flawed and imperfect,

which in turn reminded me of the bowl we had,
the one I broke when I tripped bringing you some soup,
the one whose shards you kept in a shoebox,
along with the promise that, one day, you would repair it.

I wonder where that shoebox is these days,
if you still take it with you where you go,
if it rides in the overhead compartment of the plane
when you sail to France or Canada

or Japan, perhaps.
I wonder if the ceramic pieces are still inside,
and the promise, too, keeping them company,
or if it has slipped out through a crack and fluttered away.