Bellingham Review Archives
Dear reader, The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, with nearly two million people currently locked up, not including the thousands of individuals held indefinitely in ICE detention centers or the hundreds recently sent to CECOT in El Salvador without the due process promised by the U.S. constitution. In terms …
When Kyle turns off the vacuum cleaner, silence rushes down the second floor hallway of her home and closes around her like an angry mob. She stands there in a pair of Mom-cutoff denim shorts, loose blue tank-top, and crocs, with her black hair spilling free from the back and edges of a blue bandanna. …
The naked snow slouched serenely through the crystal-cold canvas of my well-weathered window. The Artist’s sky today was painted battleship gray though brightly lit without shadowing. Frozen in temperature. Frozen in time Frozen in place Handprints on the glass forensic evidence of years spent viewing the outside from within trying to revisit my old world …
The heart is the soul and power – Motivation each artery is connected to nouns – Life each vein is a goal or task – Purpose Every book read evolves new streaks – Darwin every friend made strength is grown – Strife every love skips a beat – Diagnose Time stops for no one – …
The length of the sojourn is unknown The link to the world is only a phone My eyes of the world are not my own They are brother, sister, mother I have grown in knowledge, others in earth tones Memories like webs hold like ketones Life is wasted away like a melting snow cone sweet …
The shrink prescribed me three little blue tablets. Told me to take them every morning with water. Take them to fend off reality. The brute. Also, a little pink and gray capsule. God only knows what’s in that one. But it, too, must be taken, she said. Who am I to question her? She is …
Today, while I was on the gate, I watched Cheba’s dead body being carted past the cell I lock in.[i] He was distinguished only by a look on his face as if he were breaking the seal on a tough bowel movement. If it hadn’t been for the Sergeant yelling “what’s the time,” I wouldn’t …
A slamming steel door wakes me up at 2:30 AM. Pulled from another dream of another world of freedom. I lay there semi-conscious until 3:00 AM. I get dressed, pull my boots on, stand up and collect my I.D., scratch my head, then urinate. The day has begun. Overhead, at roughly 3:15, steel doors start …