Bellingham Review Archives
My boyfriend wrapped my favorite collar around my neck helping me feel complete in the soft, faded leather nearly choking me, but with the two finger rule we knew how to play safely, so it felt more like a hug than a strangle, though at times I didn’t mind the feeling of tightness around my …
I am wearing the pendant you made / blue shimmer, edges worn down / I slip my finger through the center, curl around the sides / each made for a different sister, each cut from the same piece of clay, each given different selkie coats of glaze / oh, what are you creating? / stolen …
In the beginning, before we knew how to move our bodies to the beat of sultry music, before we knew how to intertwine our tired tongues, God decided, on a lonely Sunday afternoon, that they were bored. They decided to make people and places and things. Light and darkness. War and peace. In an …
(CW: sexual harassment) putting away parcels of sugary cereal, Mountain Dew, cold cuts of turkey and ham from the deli wrapped in cellophane, all of this from cart to trunk, slamming metal closed tight, getting in their cars or out of them and into the sterile lights of the store, while somewhere a little girl …
I like giants Especially girl giants ‘Cause all girls feel too big sometimes Regardless of their size -Kimya Dawson, “I Like Giants” Today, you are the size of half the classroom even with your legs tucked against your chest, even with your neck craned at an angle and your cheek pressed so tightly against the …
by Stephen Haines My hands say, We’ll have Carpal Tunnel at 40. My hands say, Bartenders don’t retire, they die. The crescent-shaped tissue, cloudy-pink on the tip of my left index finger, from where I sliced it on a fruit peeler on a busy night behind a bar. Blood spewed from the wound, clouded a martini, …
by Keegan Lawler Sunfish eyes pop out so easily, hooks rippingthe wrong flesh. I feign laughter when you make bait of their eyesto bring the others back. They say a body in motion tends to stay, and a body frozen, fearful tendsto never reach you. Call yourself kinetic, call me potential, untouched. Whip the line back, …
by Allie Spikes I shave my head on my friend’s sultry Texas porch. Swollen West Nile mosquitos hang in the whir of falling strawberry locks. My reflection bends, my new jaw softer than I want. The blue of my skin glares too pink underneath, like baby mice freckled by chicken pox and scorn. …
by Jai Dulani twisted roots stretched out towards each other Parvati, my mother’s mother jawed Sindhi. her daughter, refugee camp Punjabi. matrilineal severed bark. I spoke English to my mother’s Hindi not everything makes it upstream we’re from pre-partition Pakistan. blood-dripped alliteration we background each other casual. my 2nd generation despair, a …
by Bailey Cunningham Inspired by “The Domestic Apologies” by Dustin Parsons in Brevity Goodbye to Stars You are greedy, eating up elements like an all-you-can-eat buffet. You convert hydrogen and helium and carbon into radiance so startling it inspires religions. When these atomic brews dry up, you stretch out into the cosmos, turning red like …