Blake L. Bell

Blake L. Bell is finishing up her MFA at Mississippi University for Women and teaches at a magnet high school in South Louisiana. These days, she can usually be found at home, teaching and writing. To read more from her, visit blakelbell.com or follow her @blakelbell.

LETTERS TO MACKENZIE by Blake L. Bell

I We were wild girls. Raised with dirty feet, tangled hair. Our dogs followed us down the roads we walked, but our mommas rarely did. We played hard, fought hard, loved hard. Fate cheated us from being sisters, so we bound ourselves together with blood ritual. We couldn’t go downstairs to the kitchen to get a knife, afraid of waking momma. Instead, we broke a jar in the upstairs bathroom and sliced our thumbs open; our skin peeled back, vessels bursting and spilling over. We pressed our cuts together and imagined our blood forever combined. “Soul sisters,” we said, sucking…

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