I remember, before the trial, how I tried to pull the wrinkles out of my prison clothes, tried to make myself presentable, thinking I could appear civil. My body recognizes this as shivering, because I have shivered so much before, known the cold, known the wind ripping warmth right
off me. I press the metal cuff harder into my wrist, push it into the veins to be sure they’re pinched shut. I feel the iron stop its flow, everything all confused now that the hand is cut from the system. A voice comes from a chair, a god-imposter who claims to know of both worlds. Standing before her, I understand that I cannot appear civil, not wearing the two colors of criminal, not with the metal clenching my wrist, not when I know we’re standing in an unpulled wrinkle on my clothing and the men’s hands are like irons that everywhere press flat each imperfection in a line, branding me onto the system’s back like another proud scar. The system is breathing underneath its countless burns and I hope someday its throat will rattle, spitting us all like bile into the ocean, us grasping somewhere in the infinite darkness a tunnel to rebirth.
ABOUT
Lachlan Chu is a poet from California whose work has been recognized by Narrative Magazine, the Bay Area Creative Foundation, Asian Pacific Fund, the Scholastic Arts & Writing Awards, and more. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, The Milton Review, Nightjar Magazine, the Bay Poets podcast, and elsewhere. An alumnus of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, he serves as editor-in-chief for The Acedian Review. You can find him on Twitter here.
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