An intimate first person non-fiction storytelling experience about incarceration in the United States.
I had a friend. His name was Teddy Poelking. Teddy was incarcerated for 25 years. Before his release, Teddy told me he worried about going back to society.
“Why,” I asked. “What is there to worry about?”
According to Teddy, a lot.
Continue reading “WHAT CAUSED HIS PTSD? THIS PRISON RIGHT HERE by Christopher Monihan”
Christopher Felicia Victoria
Being a parent can amplify the struggle of living in prison. In-person visits and phone calls are the primary ways incarcerated people keep in touch with loved ones. But that setup isn’t easy.
One of the biggest perspective shifts that take place for us here, separating us from the majority of society outside, is what becomes our definition of time. Is time just a cruelty to endure? A punishment meted out with such quickness, it seems as though a blindness inhabits our masses obscuring the cost to the person it was doled upon, much more than one would assume.
Some bits of time go by in the blink of an eye. Off the top of my head, the time
Heart on the Wall
I can’t believe this, I thought. It’s as though two worlds are colliding.
I was walking around the track with my teenaged brother and sister, and my mother and grandmother were also on the yard, sitting on a bench alongside the track, taking a rest break.
Today was Madison’s annual Family Day event. Usually, inmates could receive visits only in the small, crowded visit room. Today, we were able to visit with
“Get ready,” said the big guard. “You’ll be leaving soon.” I jerked awake at the guard’s voice. The orange glow from the clock beside the steel bunk illuminated 3:15AM.
I had planned to stay awake all night and chided myself for falling asleep. I grabbed toothbrush, paste and mouthwash and made for the bathroom. I didn’t know where I was going only that I’d be speaking at a large event somewhere later that day.
Continue reading “I Went To A Women’s Prison and Found Harmony by Christopher”