PbW Chapbook Official Volume 3 by Penned by Western

PBW CHAPBOOK VO.3

Printed in Canada

Thank you for being a part of the authorized edition of this book and complying with copyright laws by not producing, scanning or distributing any part of it in any form without permission.

First Edition: March 2025

Penned by Western Press London, ON /25

Letter From The Editor

Thank you to the writers, the poets, the readers, the dreamers, and to the Penned by Western members. Thank you for making magnetic poetry with us during Clubs Week. Thank you for attending our writing workshops. Thank you for supporting our new events this year–from card making to open writers studio to open mics. Thank you for helping us create a space to share your thoughts, passions, projects, and laughter. And thank you for contributing to our thirdever chapbook!

The Penned by Western Chapbook has become an annual celebration of your proudest works, deepest secrets, and most sacred thoughts. I am so incredibly grateful to be part of bringing these pieces to print, but I am even more grateful to our team. None of this would be possible without the Penned by Western Executive team for their consistent hard work and dedication all year.

Now, are you ready? This chapbook will take you on a journey through scientific prose and the love for the natural world. It will make you feel pain and pleasure, betrayal, bliss and beauty. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry. I hope it inspires you to keep on sharing, writing, and most importantly, dreaming.

So, sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy the PbW Chapbook: Volume 3.

Yours,

Nadia Parhizgar | Editor and Penned by Western President

Underwater Ways

- Edie Bray

Fictitious faces with wide smiles and giant eyes watch me from the backyard

I think they climb over the fence at night

The faces blow up bigger and bigger like helium balloons the more I look

I shouldn’t look

They should float up and away, I know that,

But they’ve gotten their strings caught in my fence

My new fence

I just painted it

I just painted it white

I stare at the faces through my bedroom window

The window is shaped like a circle

Sometimes, when I lay in bed, I pretend the window is a porthole And I am on a ship

And the faces are weird fish

I can change their bumpy red noses to coral

I can change their flopping ears to fins

I can change their dry skin to scales

And it makes it easier to sleep, then, When I find underwater ways to pretend.

Ruminations of a Canada Goose

- Chloe Jung

Did you know that Canada geese can see in two different directions at the same time?

Geese have eye cells called ganglion cells, and they’re distributed across the retinas so they can see both the vast skies and the sweeping ground when their heads are up. It’s an evolutionary advantage against their unidirectional peers.

Source: Moore et al., 2012.

Did you know that I can see in two different directions at the same time too?

I have brain activities called thoughts, and they’re distributed across my attention span so I can see both the shame of my past and the terrifying unknown of the future when my head is full. It might be an evolutionary advantage, but the source is inconclusive.

Source: Jung, 2025.

The future is a cloudless bright blue some days and stormy gray the next.

I feel the wind under my wings, smell the sweet sun on my face, And other times the air poisons my lungs and I fall down, down, down.

The past is lusciously rich brown soil in one spot and cracked concrete the next.

I leave some patches of earth alone, soft blades of grass uneaten, and other times I grab fistfuls of crumbling dirt and I dig down, down, down.

I would rather not have ganglion cells across my retinas but evolution did not grace me with unidirectional vision, so I see in both directions at the same time.

Empowerment For Women On Beauty Standards

- Harene Logan

I am beautiful just the way I am.

I am the golden light

That shines so bright And it is so everlasting

Till I become one with it It breaks down the surface

Of this new world

And the voices say

“You have a choice”

Those 6 letters sets me free

And all the doors open

To a beacon of light in the middle

And the golden heart is standing there

All opened up

With written phrases

All saying

“Do it for yourself”

“Your satisfaction”

“Your opinion only matters”

“Not anyone else’s”

“When it comes to your own beauty”

And I see my future

“A body of gold

That becomes a golden dragon

Shining so bright!!”

The Coachman

- Alisa Anderson

To my Dear,

Another carriage come and gone. I’ve collected my cargo from whence they came and shepherded them to their next stop. Final stop. Looking up to the endless, ceaseless stars, all I can think of is you. How I miss you, how I dread seeing you again. I wonder, would you even recognize me, even notice me? As I corral my charges in the carriage they never meet my gaze, staring blankly through my face until they’re collected in the body, in their box. How I’d hate to see you that way. Bright, vibrant eyes dulled by this eternal night. And yet I long to see you, to hold your face and feel your life. Another group comes through tonight. I hope I don’t see you. I wish I could see you. I wish I could stop thinking of you lest I unwittingly draw you here. I hope to never forget how your eyes crinkle with joy and constellations dot your face. I hope to see you soon. I hope not to see you for a long, long time.

Be safe my dear, live happy.

I want to go stargazing

- Amy Zheng

i want to go stargazing, feel the earth pressing against my back, blades of grass tickling my ears and stare at the wide speckled void, a graveyard of stars that lived a millennia ago long dead by the time their light reaches our eyes, a fleeting moment in the endless continuum–yet still not as temporary as i.

i have 1 millionth the lifetime of a star and i am 1 billionth the size. if i lie here long enough perhaps my body would melt back into the ground, the energy that once coursed through me will pump the wings of a butterfly, will split through soil as the roots of a tree, will become steam rising out of a hot spring. maybe one day,

i too will be a star burning in the night sky. i want to go stargazing so i might share the burden of existence.

Chang’e - Sonia Zhang

Through misty mountains and bamboo glades, up above where silver stars cascade, sleeps Chang’e and her jade rabbit.

With her breath light and cheeks rosy, the Chinese Goddess of the Moon, dreams of lunar lights, mid-autumn's dance, and the mortal man waiting for her below.

Her silk dress blows in the wind, a softly whispered spell, patient like a mother, waiting for that full moon –the one day a year she can walk the same realm as her lost lover.

Speak

- Iris Zhao

How could I ignore a bird landing on Its branch?

On that silent one, the bird is completing Its feathery feat

Even God must bow a bit like The trembling twig

And those clouds!

O, the words floating in the sky

Gazed at by me I could not speak I look at it I look at its look I could not speak

I saw something on the dead internet theory and then wanted to write about it

- Sarah VanDzuer

I am not a machine

Convince me I am real

I am a human

I am of flesh and blood

When the captcha appears I move A finger over a trackpad A hand on a mouse

Convince me

The cursor swoops and arches over the page to prove the user behind the screen is not made of 1s and 0s

I click the box solve the puzzle find the items read the numbers and letters

Red text appears as the window shakes and everything remains unchanged

Please Try Again

The Fall

- Daniella Misyura

My white ivory bed sheets crash over Waves against hot showered skin

It’s dim

And I know what’s about to happen

Going under the soft spell, Into the quicksand of cotton

I look for a mundane memory

A concrete worry

A trifle

But nothing sticks

The dim turns to dark, and it stares back at me

And all worries get swallowed, keep pulling away

From me

Like the space between consciousness and dreams

Heavy lidded now

I can feel the fall

Slipping into the black sea

Pressure surrounds me, above and below

Long, lucid algae wraps around my limbs, and I Hang idly in the water’s membrane

I breathe silk into my chest

Reassured back into a pulse

I’m warm

And my body radiates the sea

In the clear cosmic water

Like bees in a shrub of crocuses

Like fairies stirring and playing

The molecules dance

Waiting for a sound pattern, or a finishing pose, which may only come Through midnight dreams

Through events half understood and memories half remembered

Born again in a lush jade jungle

Wet soil like slippers on my feet

Donning a white gown

I wander in the forest’s broad, beating chest

I look for treasures, above and below

And I don’t know yet

When I will have to return

1 Lombardy Avenue

- Nadia Parhizgar

The water makes everything better, does it not? It’s halfway through summer and you’re always there for me. Some days I’m entranced by your colours above, some days your skies need a shoulder to cry on. You’re there on nights I seek you out on my lonesome, you’re there on days I bring company.

I run to you when the world gets loud, and when my mind races faster than my legs can keep up, when the voices drown faster than I do in deep breaths, you wait patiently for me.

Finally, the quiet.

Soon to come are the comfort months of autumn. I’ll come and go when I can, when the winds blow cooler and the nights grow longer.

And though the sun still rises and sets all the same, winter always arrives and I’ll be nowhere to be found. You don’t get many visitors during these months. The loneliness will get cold, and you’ll eventually freeze over.

But just know I’ll be here when you wake up.

The Flow

- Matthew Langdon

The flow through life, thoughts and being washing over like a river of experience

Some feel comforting, like a blanket of protective warmth

Others are sharp and painful. The hardest are like puddy. We are entrusted with shaping them ourselves

They morph to our specificities. They turn Wild. Beautiful. Dangerous. Unpalatable. Shameful. Wrong. Why can we be trusted with creation when the creators are so defective?

The flow is unstoppable. It cont i n u e s a machine you can’t turn off

Existing every moment. Harder concepts. Rougher ideas. Pain. The painful ones

Life was one of two. On or off. Cry or calm. Now I’m diseased with a calm cry

No wonder direction is desired so when the mind is pulled in all direction

North. East. Injustice. South. Grief. Backwards. Lost. Abyss. Bright sun, fields flowing with bright pink peonies. Bunnies breathing in the warm air

Everyone watching. Failure from earlier. They know you are unwanted

A shout upstairs, a teary face from the one who brings you food. It’s takeout today

Too early for these. I want the fields but suffer the yells It’s all complex, a b s t r a c t. We are all Isolated and alone in experience.

The wise can show slivers of what self is Signed up for the unknowable by someone else. Signed up for the sum of all pain And beauty. And happy. And growth

All add up to the gratitude for flow. I would ask for nothing else

Salamander Hunter

- Yuan (Fiona) Gao

The Salamander Hunter studies and hunts salamanders for ten years to catch the one Salamander whom he talked to in his dreams. She is black, slippery, breathing fire and dwelling in wisdom. One day the Hunter woke up at midnight to find ninety-nine warty salamanders crawling out from the burning logs, and his house on fire. He saw the giant Salamander looking down at the ashes. “You will never learn how to conspire,” she said, “I breathe with God and GOD IS MY AESTHETIC.”

Citrus Neutralization

- Kamraan Ahmad

Neon shards of nostalgia slice through midnight, wistfully Cascading clementines over the splintered skeleton, I roam Titration drowning away in basic rain as Droplets hail, baptizing the manic therianthrope under the highway digging graves

Churning concrete onto the marooned mansion Etched hieroglyphs of bionic dystopia, in chromatic harmony shroud folly, while pulsating veins echo the wailing static of violent sirens, a retrograde note in the symphony of regret. Enclosed in a glacier of flames.

Osmosis of petrol propels the grandiose inferno, while the ruptured asphalt coos for rigour mortis, I’ve tried nothing, everything works; simply subtle mnemonics of occult scars.

Fractal mirror coalesces, the self inflicted hubris.

Secreted anatomy and trachea distort autonomy, once an abode. Won't let you know when I get goin’ voicemail swansong while my beloveds’ reeks a putrescent odor of envy Corner of my eye, the coroner’s here It makes sense, don’t make none to me The voice imposed, I'm the only audience.

My Conceit

- Ahmed Al-Samak

I’m tryna scribble my stripes and dot my . I’s, Colour my truth and paint the skies, The world is my canvas, don’t stencil your mind.

I am not the all-knowing, nor the all-wise, But One, you’re the only me in Prime. Your kingdom’s unaligned, Your Amazon of Versailles, Your Highness, to me, excellence remains undefined.

Fill this bucket with human tears when you cry, Let out the sins of mankind. My unquestioned saviour Bathe our walls in Venetian blinds. If you please, tip the foundation, this Pisa of mine Simmer within the mirage, But do not forget it is mine For this is the world of a Villain, and heroes never cry.

Tenderhook

- Clay Locke

Gentle, gentle tender hook

Sew my lips shut and take me too

You say that the fish don’t feel it

It’s painless when it comes from you

And though I know you never meant

To flay my skin, indifferent

The barbs catch my soft palate

Heatless, you are, tender hook

The way you leave me out to dry

You say that if the fish don’t feel

Well, tender hook, neither shall I

But tender hook, here’s a secret

The fish are bleeding in the pond

And as the blood stems from my mouth

I know, I know, it’s all for naught

My sweet, my gentle tender hook

Please don’t forget it’s me you caught

Over it - Vishwa Prajapati

Yes I am over it,

Yes it has been a long time, Yet the wound is fresh, The pain is fresh, I don’t know what is hurting, But it hurts a lot!

No, I do not regret moving on, I regret trusting a stranger. The time that used to give comfort, has now become a memory full of regrets and pain...

Pounds of Nothing

- Alyssa Abou Naoum

I try and weigh the pounds of my achievements, but I always come up short. The scale tips but never as high as the people who’ve stepped on before me. I watch them indulge, I eat with them, but nothing tastes as good as it looks when you’re sure that you’re starving.

The dinners I’ve broken my back to prepare, the recipe books I’ve meticulously followed, the feasts I’ve forced down my throat none of it has ever fed my hunger because I’m starving and I weigh nothing.

Everything I do, it weighs nothing.

The Traitor

- DeeDee El-Hage

The voice in your head ends up ruining me

How fun to think you wanted all the best Admittedly, it took too long to see Now it’s too late, ‘cause his body’s at rest

Accepting that you might be malicious

You never wanted him or me alike Resulting in my lack of suspicion Why did you prick my finger on a spike?

And if I had to live as you instead? There’s no way I could do that with such ease I would have never tried to fill her head When did you start to just do as you please?

I’m sure this will come back to bite your ass ‘Til then, I will pray this quickly to pass

Whispers of Freedom

- Paleesa Kapoor

Freedom's fragrance in the air, a symphony of hope

Steps of liberation echo; photograph of hopeful faces in the newspaper

Transporting back to a small town where once, dreams were confined in mental cells

In this atmosphere of struggle and bearing

A mother feeding heaping spoonfuls of hope to her child, The child holds dreams close to heart to silence the hunger for a better life

But darkness had tried to dim their path, the ache of dreams discarded

Landscapes blur into eerie corridors, They are heavy with unwritten narratives, murmurs of deferred desires that caused agony

Rows of desperate faces looking hauntingly alike

Their yearning for freedom is etched in every glance. By night, they are drowned souls, huddled in their beds

Fixing eyes upon a hollow and swollen face

Injustice arouses anger and reveals petrified child within

Sighing, clenching a fist tight into the newspaper and starting on the way home

A shadow of charcoal dissolves into the quaint tunnel of lost souls

A distant call of freedom piercing the melancholy silence

Stumbling along, the scent of hope fills

A scarred lady, now in a brightly colored shawl, Engages in animated conversation, her eyes warm

“Home” whispers the winds; it speaks freedom’s name

This sense of security, warmth, and bonding

A world of compassion and understanding is to find a glimmer of light

Helping others and ourselves find a way home

Wherever it may be

A quest every human shares, through the ages

supernova

- Xiaohan Yan

The afternoon before I visit my sister, I think of how we used to run across the sky. That was in our youth, back when we had millions of sisters, back before we were even made. We were barely even debris, then, just specks of stuff floating around the Way, spiralling and shouting, all falling too fast but not scared, never scared. And why would we have been? We were young and bright and newborn, right in the midst of Everything Happening until Everything Happened and it stopped.

Now, there is no more falling. Instead, I spin and spin, which is fun, but you can get tired of it after a while. I also stay in orbit, which is cooler than just spinning but you get tired of that, too. What I don’t get tired of is my sister. That’s how I call her, always, to all the suns and stars, and when I say, “I’m going to see my sister!” they all know who I’m talking about, because she’s the only one left. The others are gone, I don’t know where. Maybe they’ve exploded, like our mother, and I have little nieces around here somewhere. I would prefer that to the other options. My greatest fear, which I will never say aloud, is that they’re alive but not close enough. That would be the worst, for them to be just out of reach, beyond that planet, beyond that turn and I would never know for sure, spinning and spinning, trapped where I am.