Pandora's Ink Digital Magazine

Written by Xiang Li from West Morris Mendham High School in New Jersey, USA We are the moon’s echo on this side of the sea, split light drifting in American dawn. Mom and I bloom in a borrowed land, roots tangled in soil that doesn’t know our names, split light drifting in American dawn. In China, our other half dreams of us roots tangled in soil that doesn’t know our names. Every meal my mother builds by hand. In China, the other half dreams of us. My father, thunder behind

Written by Yixuan (Eason) Liu from Shanghai Starriver Bilingual School, Shanghai, China A swarm of angels plunged from the sky with a craving for my blood and a hunger for my hair. Their wings carried white, shining sand from the sea, pelting my raw skin with a silky river of gems. In their hands they held a sapphire mirror– an emperor stared at me from its papery depths, stealing my smile to wear on his empty face. He stretched out his broken hand and took my umbrella, bit

Written by Xiangxuan Wang from the International Department of Chengdu Shude High School, China The world remembers people in quiet, strange ways. Some by photographs pressed between old books. Some by voices sealed in forgotten recordings. I remember my mother by a scent that lingered long after she left the room. It clung to sun-warmed cotton swaying on the line, lavender and old soap still holding the warmth of her hands. Every evening she washed away more than dust. The k

Written by Wenhui (Cathy) Qing from SDSZ International Department in Beijing, China I came to a house that is wide and still, where a woman resides, calm and chill. She feeds me soft, brushes my coat that smells of sun and rain’s light note. But her posture is stiff, hands slow to reach. At the bell that clinks, she holds to breathe. Her eyes hold a ghost, a small white light, that haunts her through the silent night. I sniff the truth, but don’t make a sound, I fill a spac

Written by Nicole Leyberov from Jericho Middle School, New York, USA She is beautiful, entrancing, the sweet depth of her eyes like cherries with water beads that dare to dribble down. She does not fear the ocean, but lets it envelop her to become one with its storms, and one with its tranquility. Improperly proper, she is the muse of my heart’s studies, that I paint by marking every vein in my body, filling up with her. But she is beautiful – not handsome, not white no

Written by Katherine Wu Seven Lakes High School, Texas, USA Humming low, a hymn of wings and buzzing bodies. Dungeness crabs scuttle like restless mourners in silent prayer. The mud smells of salt and something older, brine and decay braided together, an inheritance carried by tides. Grass stalks bow under the weight of wind, whispering secrets to the water. This place knows how to hold loss, how to fold it gently into sediment until grief becomes silt, soft enoug

Written by Joy Zhang from Iolani School, Honolulu, Hawaii I step onto the prairie. The air is fresh. A wandering wind sweeps my hair across my face, hiding me momentarily. Before me, a field of dandelions blooms, rising from rich soil. I reach for one. Stubbornly, it resists– rooted as if it knows what I have done. If even a dandelion refuses me, what hope do I have— of release? of forgiveness? At last, risen, plucked, I gently blow upon the flower. The white pappi drift far,

Written by Iris Zhu from Deerfield Academy, Massachusetts, USA Holes dot the earth like the lotus plant: wide-mouthed and eager. Beneath the dirt, there are girls with petals in their hair. When the rain falls next year, I think they will flower. The mothers arrive in flocks like carrion birds circling the dead. There is nothing to scavenge but limbs and schoolbags packed that morning. They shake pictures of their precious girls in front of cameras: Look at what you took fro

Written by Ivy Lu from Fairmont Preparatory Academy, California, USA i do not crave the tempestuous myth of love – no fantasy vows nor kisses of devotion but rather the quiet, sacerdotal rites of being tended to. i want to be handled as one handles relics: with a reverence that trembles at the wrist. count me– not in measures of worth of want, but in sunspots and freckles, those constellatory blemishes scattered like tiny stars across my cheeks. enumerate them as if each one

Written by Iris Zhu from Deerfield Academy, Massachusetts, USA I am woken by the grey that muffles the sky. On my bedside the candle burns white as light– melting, melting; its supple wax, like sweat dried into salt turns an opaque, rigor mortis stiff. The great huffing and puffing of man, it curls like a sigh of frost seeping over a morning meadow– out from the esophagus of metal organs, out into the miserable evening stretched against night. It licks gilded, gum-sticky hand

Written by Cindy Miao from Holton Arms School in Maryland, USA punctuated french transcends the language barrier through universal claps and body rolls, echoing a resonant pulse through the humid basement pocketed dirhams riffle through Mohammed VI’s stare in kaleidoscopic colors seeing double, glinting reflections dance in the wall-mounted mirror twist limbs to the music’s demanding beat spill laug

Written by Ian Zou from Ranny School in NJ, USA First week of world peace, people ponder Who are the ones to redeem Why did we go through all the torture All because of an unraveled dream Beyond the time, things shall alter Second week of world peace, people rebuild Urban revive, skyscrapers erected Not a single drop of cement spilt Happy are the families to connect Cities lay flourished like a quilt Third week of world peace, people delete None suffer from poverty People des

Written by Anna Kung from Phillips Academy-Andover, Massachusetts, USA A silent river, ever wide, that carries all who step inside. Moments drift like fallen leaves, caught in winds that no one sees. It doesn’t pause; it doesn’t wait, for love or loss, for joy or fate. It heals, it steals, it fades, it grows: this mystery nobody knows. In childhood's laugh, in an elder's sigh, it whispers softly as years go by. It teaches gently, sometimes rough, that now is fleeting—never e

Written by Angela Du from New York City, USA ocean— keeper of the unwanteds mother of salt swallowed light whole cities of coral bleached white— brittle as ribs current, i command you carry bottle caps; treat them as pearls. somewhere beneath the atlantic. metal rusts into the reef. iron hits my tongue. rain gathers pulling itself inland. the ocean keeps giving. & even now salt in our blood waves folding themselves. endlessly giving but we keep ta

Written by Alysa Wu from United World College of South East Asia (UWCSEA), Singapore You wake up in the middle of the ice, in a bed of eggshell colored linen, of dreams burdened with the distant sins of roaring water by the coast, out the window. Drive, in a pale blue van, for what feels like miles through a Californian road without any roadsigns without any stops or gas stations to the home that you once had, where you once jumped in between the waves with your friends f

Written by Alvin Su from Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States The basket’s ribs remember: how calloused hands (cathedral pillars) cradled each golden globe like communion wafers, how the command was Take Eat This is my body, never this is my leaving. Five years, seven months, thirteen days since teeth last split peach skin, since the attic swallowed every promised return. Now the fruit swells with unspoken law: she is fading. The trees bow lo

Written by Alice Wang from Weston High School in Massachusetts, USA I was a salmon but I was also a mom where I was born was where I would die Every salmon mom tells the same story: “Baby fish are born in fresh water and grow up in sea water; fresh water is where it begins” The ocean was where I belonged I didn’t like returning to somewhere I didn’t even remember to die but I had to On my way back I saw the plants that I felt familiar with but couldn't recall the

Written by Angela Su from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA We speak of unity, but our streets surge with scattered screams and footsteps that rattle office tower glass. Clammy hands clutch paper signs– creased, weathered, sweat-damp. Cracked lips form words lost somewhere in the noise. Steady feet pound, in unison, against earth’s tired bones. The air, aroma thick with cardboard, tear gas, and smoke– but does anyone call this division? We speak of justice, but the scales tilt slow

Written by Angela Su from New Orleans, Louisiana, USA I am always circling back to things I meant to leave behind my mother’s keys hitting the glass bowl by the door, the smell of my grandpa’s closet, the way the shadows look through tent fabric at noon. I am always folding the map wrong, creasing the edges until the town names disappear. Shortcut, foolproof, auto-corrected– everything is optimized these days. Letting a road surprise you is now a memory drifting like faded in

Written by Violent Yan from Virginia, USA Such a fond lollipop-memory Childhood's beginnings all gummy drops Life sweet in its sugar packet A fairytale of possibility, of endless time Childhood's beginnings all gummy drops Before years march on to adolescence So that we wish for a return to a Life sweet in its sugar packet Before years march on to adolescence Barefoot dancing on shag carpet So that we wish for a return to Stress not enshrouding our shoulders Barefoot danci