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Girlhood

December 25, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Lydia Wei

i am six when i am called fat for the first time.
late spring, snack time at daycare, two oreos on a paper plate.
a still life, if you will: outside the window the peonies are blooming,
so swollen & violent with the fullness of being. i feel overripe,
too soft, like a cosmos-bruised plum from the supermarket clearance […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Lydia-Wei_Featured-Image.jpg 1080 1080 Lydia Wei https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Lydia Wei2019-12-25 10:16:312019-12-25 10:16:31Girlhood
Ujjwal Sagar, Nightingale and Nature, Photograph

Nightingale and Nature

December 11, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Ujjwal Sagar

A brief idea about “True Love and Nature”: A nightingale had laid three eggs in a nest of a small Christmas plant at my house. Since then, the nightingale cared for all three eggs.[…]

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Poem for Graph Paper / Three/One

November 20, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Sal Kang

assignment
unfinished

summer days
spent in the
windowless
science lab […]

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To Live

November 6, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Claire Shin

[fiction] Emma Williams woke up at ten o’clock on Saturday morning, darkness flooding her window. She blinked twice. She forgot her dreams. Shouldn’t there be sunlight? she thought to herself. Peering helplessly around her room, she fumbled for her glasses in the dark, stupidly discovering that they could not help her see a thing in the pitch blackness […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ClaireShin.jpg 1080 1080 Claire Shin https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Claire Shin2019-11-06 11:08:442019-11-08 18:02:30To Live

Skins / For Helena

October 23, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Anna Špirochová

skin(s)
sparks of lust shoot from it
yet with our fingertips
we create a circle of trust
a circle of us
the misunderstanding: […]

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Blood Drive

October 9, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Sang Yun Jee

flowery wine-scented air rises from cotton
swabs that have cleaned so many arms.
now they are little litter-poppies
loitering about the needle and syringe […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/CDAC671B-19C5-47D1-9DE1-3B80DC998750.jpeg 1080 1080 Sang Yun Jee https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Sang Yun Jee2019-10-09 12:34:062019-10-13 23:41:29Blood Drive

One of Your Ceramic Angels Fell from the Mantel, It’s in Pieces

September 25, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Grace Molenda

[creative nonfiction] In Philadelphia. I don’t normally carry a backpack, but today, practicality prevails, and my shoulder bag has been replaced by a maroon two-strap from an earlier decade. With it I am wearing a white dress shirt, green cotton pants with an unforgiving elastic waistband […]

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American Alien

September 11, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Jenna Bao

I am an alien
My eyes, my skin color, my being
Jump out like a wilting wisteria in the midst of
A perfumed garden of pruned, perfect, and pretty pansies […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/American-Alien-featured.jpg 788 940 Jenna Bao https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Jenna Bao2019-09-11 12:06:582019-10-13 17:36:56American Alien

A Time for Dying

August 28, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Emma Rose Gowans

[fiction] My grandfather’s eyes turn old before he does. We watch them as they yellow—changing from a pure white into an egg yolk, runny and discolored. The way he watches the world around him changes too; he seems to watch now in quiet anticipation […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Gowans_Featrued_Image.jpg 1080 1080 Emma Rose Gowans https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Emma Rose Gowans2019-08-28 12:04:022019-10-13 17:37:33A Time for Dying

This Vision Makes Us Beautiful

August 14, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Teddi Haynes

we have folded into a day
where we can see any
color we want: royal purple,
recesses of indigo, […]

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Letter to the Intelligentsia

July 31, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Amanda Lopez

In this cage of preconceived notions,
—in the crevices of God’s palm,
You’ve seen me wallow in my sorrows in the cortex
And scream to the heavens of insanity […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Harris_Featured_Image.jpg 1080 1080 Amanda Lopez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Amanda Lopez2019-07-31 12:39:022019-10-13 17:31:45Letter to the Intelligentsia

Four from the Graveyard

July 17, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Dele Smith

[creative nonfiction] In China, you are expected to conceal your emotions. Sometimes, it helps to comfort yourself with a fictitious, whimsical story on death, like that of the bone carver. But when you are helpless, lost in the sea of your emotions, there is nothing left to do but to let the waves pull you down […]

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Treehouse

July 3, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Amanda Lopez

[creative nonfiction] The magnolia tree in my front yard blossomed in early March; the branches weighed down with huge white flowers, only a breath away from the ivy-coated ground. My brother and I used to swing from these branches, flipping over them and putting our weight on thinner […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Brown_Featured_Image.jpg 1080 1080 Amanda Lopez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Amanda Lopez2019-07-03 12:16:232019-07-26 22:45:36Treehouse

from a queer man who grew up with whitman

June 19, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Amanda Lopez

I. “In the stillness his face was inclined towards me, while the moon’s clear beams shone, And his arm lay lightly over my breast—and that night I was happy.”
that night i was happy. and it was not moonlight i saw but instead the orange glow of the lights[…]

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The Flow of Madness

May 29, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Amanda Lopez

[fiction] Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock; he stared straight, unblinking, at the obnoxiously white wall. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, as he stared, he began to notice figures forming from the tiny ridges and divots that made up the texture of the wall. He saw a boy with no face and a girl […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Emily_Matuska-School-Lunch-1.jpg 788 940 Amanda Lopez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Amanda Lopez2019-05-29 12:04:562019-07-03 13:08:31The Flow of Madness

Garden of Remembrance

May 15, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Ephie Hauck

[flash prose] Monday. There is a stranger at my door. He won’t stop knocking, won’t stop peering through the windows. He swears that he once knew me. I could remember, he says, if I’d just look at him. I shut the blinds. *     *     * Tuesday. There are no longer any mirrors in […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/GardenOfRemebranceINSTA-1.jpg 1080 1080 Ephie Hauck https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Ephie Hauck2019-05-15 12:05:132019-06-03 09:08:11Garden of Remembrance

Seven Confessions

May 1, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Vivian Parkin DeRosa

1. My childhood ended when the dog arrived. *     *     * 2. It was late August. The stream of freedom inspired by the beginning of summer had mellowed to a trickle, and we stuck our tongues out in hopes to catch a drop. My younger sisters and I would wallow in the shallow end of […]

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Blurred Faces

April 17, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Amanda Lopez

[flash prose] When you first open your eyes, all you can see is the brightness. You don’t know what it is, but you feel your stubby fingers reach for that light. Pale clouds of cream dot your vision as you squirm, your back brushing against a fur blanket. You feel tender hands wrap delicately around […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/ChristineZANFFB.jpg 788 940 Amanda Lopez https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Amanda Lopez2019-04-17 12:59:062020-01-05 17:05:27Blurred Faces

Far From Normal

April 2, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Niko Boskovic

[creative nonfiction] Given my personal perspective as an autistic person, nowhere in my personal vernacular does the word “normal” appear. It’s something I’ve never experienced. Neither is it something I have aspired to become. Perfectly “normal” is so far from my life goals that you might not believe me when I say that I would […]

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KB

March 20, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Jennifer Ly

[creative nonfiction] Well, this is gonna hurt like a female dog (unfortunately I have to watch my profanity, so just use your imagination). The autobiography of seventeen-year-old me, that is. I feel like I have some insight, enough insight on being a black young woman in America. Being born so, I’m automatically important and destined […]

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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/KAYLABARTONFB.jpg 788 940 Jennifer Ly https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Jennifer Ly2019-03-20 12:15:372019-06-03 09:29:29KB

Three Shorts—Strawberry Hill, Spotlight, Revolution

March 6, 2019/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2019 / Edie Patterson

Welcome to our new occasional series, School Lunch. A youth spotlight, School Lunch is a curated bi-weekly feature offering fiction, poetry, flash prose, personal essay, YA, and CNF, from writers ranging in ages 13 through 17. Please enjoy. ~The Editors   Strawberry Hill [fiction] On the last day of summer, Brynn sits in the blackberry […]

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School Lunch Archive

  • 2021
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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published every Friday.

Today’s course:

Diagnosed at Sixty – My ADHD Journey

April 22, 2022/in Blog / Kait Leonard
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Why Video Game Preservation Matters

April 15, 2022/in Blog / Nicholas Galvez
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Sarees in America

April 1, 2022/in Blog / Majella Pinto
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Midnight Snack

A destination for all your late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

QVC-land

May 6, 2022/in Midnight Snack / D. E. Hardy
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Diana-Hardy_QVC_Feature_Photo.png 533 800 D. E. Hardy https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png D. E. Hardy2022-05-06 23:45:322022-05-06 19:25:59QVC-land

Escape Artists at the End of the World

April 29, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Lisa Levy
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The House in the Middle

April 15, 2022/in Midnight Snack / Megan Vasquez
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More coming soon!

Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every Monday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Antigone in NYC

May 2, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche, Poetry / Ann Pedone
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Slackers Rule

April 26, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Karen Regen-Tuero
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Ownership Records

March 28, 2022/in Amuse-Bouche / Lucy Zhang
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More Amuse-Bouche »

Word From the Editor

Here at Lunch Ticket, 2021 represents ten years of our literary journal. 2021 marks the start of a new decade, one I can only hope will stand as tall and iconic in the history of our publication as the jazz age in America. What we’ve put together this fall is what I call and will fondly remember as our “Roaring 20th Issue”.

More from the current editor »
Current Issue »

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