by Sarah Toney (This story contains suicide.) The air was thin and icy. Breathing it in felt like swallowing shattered glass. The city was beautiful from this height and the boy wanted to reach out and feel the warmth of the setting sun. The heaviness in his chest felt a…
by Amy Covel It was Your work You gathered The stone The metal The tools You worked For days For months For years You created Those walls Those floors Those bars And now You live In Your own Prison.
by Robert Barhite I hate cops. I grew up in Postville, Iowa, way up in the northeast corner of the state and not too far from the Mississippi River. Nothing much ever changed in my hometown. I went to the same red brick two story grade school built in 1908…
by Joni Bour It was a horrible, sideways rain day, seen only on the Oregon coast. I remember that day, because I remember him. He was quaking like an aspen tree, dripping, trying unsuccessfully not to fling water everywhere. He just stood there, not quite making eye contact and barely…
by Benny Diaz III Rudy Esparza didn’t like to dance. He couldn’t understand how people could do it, how they could coordinate their hands and their legs to do what the music told them to do. Even as a child, Rudy hated to dance. He used to make fun of…
by Rachel Chalmers ANCHOR: You’re listening to Swan Song, and we’re crossing over live to Fox San Quentin for the last ever interview with California’s worst infanticide. A content warning for our sensitive listeners: This inmate is unrepentant and the details of her crimes are grotesque. Male authority figure guidance…