Alex Tretbar

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Karissa Ho

Instructions to be Issued to AICs1 One Month Prior to Release

Alex Tretbar

A repealed memorandum from the Oregon Department of Corrections2

  1. Before leaving, finish all books that you are in the process of reading.3 Failure to do so may prophetically ensure your return.

  2. When you are released, don’t look back at the prison.4 Doing so may prophetically ensure your return.

  3. Upon release, place not your faith in hamburgers, hotel sex, or cigarettes.

  4. Fear not silence.

  5. Fear not excess of noise.

  6. When your memories of incarceration begin to self-delete, consider taking advantage of the various aids to memory5 at your disposal.

  7. When your memories of incarceration begin to self-replicate, do not consider taking advantage of the various annihilators of memory6 at your disposal.

  8. When a stranger invariably brushes shoulders with you on a sidewalk or public transportation, consider it not a slight, but something holy.

  9. Avoid use of the dependent clause, “When I was in prison…”

  10. If you hear a lonesome bird,7 sing along.



  1. Adults in Custody
  2. Certain unnamed members of the committee which convened to assemble this set of instructions have since been removed from their posts. In light of these events, the committee has been reconstituted and will be reconvening in FY 2024 to establish a more relevant, coherent, and tangible set of instructions.
  3. You are welcome to take such books with you if they are your personal property. Our concern (and yours) is whether the incompletion of said books may prophetically ensure your return. You may regard this as a metaphor.
  4. This is not a metaphor. Ruminate on your incarceration as often as you like, but do not look back at the physical embodiment of your incarceration, the prison itself.
  5. Photography, film, writing, painting, meditation, oral history, etc.
  6. Alcohol, diacetylmorphine, fentanyl, methamphetamine, alprazolam, etc.
  7. Eastern whip-poor-will, golden-crowned sparrow, common loon, etc.

Alex Tretbar is the author of the chapbook Kansas City Gothic (Broken Sleep, 2025). His poems and essays appear or are forthcoming in APARTMENT, Colorado Review, Iterant, Kenyon Review, Narrative, Protean, The Rumpus, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere.

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