The Good Life Review
Translation | Esman Rodas Calderon
Esman Rodas Calderon is a Guatemalan-American poet based in Lincoln, Nebraska. He has been writing poetry for 2 years, and has over a decade of experience in the arts. In addition to being a full time band teacher, he coaches speech for a state championship team the past 2 years. His work depicts a variety of personal and societal topics.
On Election Day | Dufflyn Lammers
Dufflyn Lammers is a Paris-based coach, writer and speaker. She has published in The LA Times, Business Insider, Iowa Woman, Traveller’s Tales and on Russell Simmons Def Poetry, HBO. Her one woman show DISCOVERED debuted on London’s West End London and at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, 2018. She co-edited Chorus with Saul Williams and Aja Monet, Simon & Schuster, 2012. Dufflyn is anthologized in Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry, Manic D Press, 2000. She offers one-on-one coaching remotely with women all over the world. Catch her at the Global Exchange Conference, 2026 in Las Vegas or visit her at www.dufflyn.com for more.
Airport Security | Eve Addams
Airport Security
A letter to Tel Aviv airport’s head of security, who interrogated me:
I’m sorry that you haven’t gotten a chance to hear
how many terms of endearment there are in Arabic, Habibti
Ya Omri
Qalbi
Hayati
Rohi
my sister, my age, my heart, my life, my soul
I’m sorry that you don’t have someone whispering these to you at night
when you are scared of air strikes
I am not sorry that I love a Palestinian
and yes, I do know the names of everyone in my partner’s family
and no, I’m not going to tell you their exact addresses.
Wouldn’t you rather know how each of them smiles?
Samar is shy, and hers comes creeping from the side
Bader’s bursts from his chest
Raghad looks down before expressing
This is the job of security, right?
To collect others’ joy until you find some inside?
Fear has many faces and I look them in the eye
in yours I see that what I say will affect my partner’s safety
and safety in this case is not just, do we feel okay
but
will his family live to see the next day
I already felt your colleagues push by us in the street
heard the slurs you spat
watched from the bus as you cornered a man and pulled your guns
Telling Truth to you
has consequences.
But I wonder if you might have softened your attacks
if you knew I also grew up saying Baruch Atah Adonai in candlelight
or searched my name on the internet and saw the catalogues of Holocaust deaths
Am I less Jewish than you?
It’s not that I want your sympathy
but I want to watch your eyes shift knowing that we share this
that nonetheless I love someone Palestinian
that this is not a crime
but you’re the one with the assault weapon
so instead I watch as you unpack and scan
every individual item on me
and I wish you inspected your air strike targets this closely
at the end of it all
you take two of my liquids
tell me
they’re oversized
That’s a lie.
But– if lathering with stolen moisturizer will soften your edges
take the whole damn liquids bag
use it to dull corners of the rubble in Gaza
to soothe the skin of the children whose parents you’ve taken
to fill up your tanks and bulldozers until they’re out of commission
I hope that our children don’t meet in a war zone
don’t reap the hate we’ve cultivated on the graves of loved ones, because
Childhood
should never be a war zone
can never simply be a ceasefire
it must be a garden of respect that we tend to with love as water
planting seeds of kindness and compassion
until they blossom into trust
and belief that the future is possible
Together.
Not trying to survive
but thrive.
Inshallah
we’ll understand that with time.
Eve Addams is a Denver-based poet whose work mixes storytelling with elements of magical realism to explore love, language, religion, trauma, and time. She is a member of the 2025 Mercury Slam Poetry Team and a 2x Moth StorySlam winner. Connect with her on instagram @eveaddamspoet