by Alex Phengsavath
Doing lines of credit
On my over drafting table
Sleep debt relief
Smudging ink over
Countless packages
Signed, sealed, and delivered
To clients waiting
Inbox maxed out
My credit cards
Declined a guy
Asking for feet pics
But $50 is $50
Settle a credit score
Dispute a claim
That I’m not a real artist
Drew on the wrong layer
In my style
With my stylus
On the tablet
With a tablet
Sublingual
Chewing chapped lips
With burnt out blood
WIP approval
Validating
Sketchy sites
Dark web networking
Mixers for new illustrators
Disillusioned by labor
Markets for Re: animators
Bcc: Underpaid Zombies
Chokehold chock full
Suffocating
Turning up the art degrees
Cramped hand
Fallow fingers
A deficit in creativity
Alex Phengsavath (he/him) recently finished his MFA at WWU in beautiful Bellingham, WA and was the 2023-2024 Managing Editor at Bellingham Review. He attended the University of Washington for his undergrad years and majored in German Studies and Comparative Literature. When he isn’t reading or writing, Alex loves to play TTRPGs and is an amateur calligrapher.
Alex’s poem “Werewolf BDSM” has also been published in Special Issue ’25 After Dark.