When I think of music and prison in the same sentence, songs I know by heart echo through my mind. My journey through the abyss of American Corrections can best be told through song.

Music exposes the soft underbelly of the prison beast. I’ve suckled from its bosom rhythm and memories with the promise of a joyful future that for decades has been the province of my dreams.

Music pulls back the veil to big prisony subjects, from the first day, relationships, addiction, to the cruel hand of the guards. So grab ahold of my pocket and stay close as we forge through this prison wilderness. Through music I will reveal what I have learned in prison.

My first day trapped in prison in the words of Imagine Dragons and the Eagles:

I’m waking up to ash and dust, I wipe my brow I sweat my rust. I’m breaking in, shaping up, the checking out of the prison bus.

Goodnight, said the watchman, we are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.

I once stumbled upon two burly men fighting naked on the bathroom floor, both having just emerged from the showers (together?). Apparently, the one had cheated on the other with someone else’s boyfriend.

I’ve learned that same sex relationships in men’s prisons are like Lionel Ritchie, George Michael, Atlantic Starr, and Culture Club songs:

Hello, is it me you’re looking for?

There’s things that you guess and there’s things that you know. Boys that you trust and girls that you don’t. There’s the little things that you hide and little things that you show.

Secret lovers that’s what we are.

Karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon, you come and go. You come, and go.

My blog puts me in contact with people in prison across the country. By contrast, I’ve discovered that same sex relationships in women’s prisons are all the rage. They’re straight out of Taylor Dayne, Madonna and Doja Cat songs:

Tell it to my heart, tell me I’m the only one.

You’re so fine and you’re mine. I’ll be yours ’till the end of time ’cause you made me feel, yeah you made me feel, I have nothing to hide. Like a virgin, touched for the very first time.

Let me see you go to town. Baby let me see you go to town.

My experience with the guards hasn’t always been positive. Some come to work with an ax to grind. The Suicide Squad, Metallica and 52 words sum up my words on that:

You don’t own me. You don’t own me. Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tell me what to say.

Never care for what they say. Never care for the games that they play. Never care for what they do. Never care for what they know — and I know, nothing else matters.

The drug epidemic here at Camp Cupcake has reached fever pitch. To staunch the flown of illicit drugs Ohio has banned physical mail for scanned alternatives; banned packages unless ordered from ‘pre-approved’ vendors, of whom price gouge the incarcerated and their families; limited in person visitation for pay-to-view ‘video’ visits — yet, drugs flow in unhindered.

Gee, Obvious Guys says, I wonder who could possibly be bringing the stuff in? Dax, and Bush capture the epidemic I see raging all around me:

I got wasted because I didn’t want to deal with myself tonight.

No one knows, never will. Mostly me but mostly you, what do you say, what do you do when it all comes down?

I was once a staunch atheist. P.O.D. captures my early struggle to discover my place in this world:

We are, we are the youth of the nation. There’s got to be more to life than this. There’s got to be more to everything that exists.

Organized religion isn’t for me. I didn’t have to endure life in a religious cult (I tip my hat to you Ms. LaFleur) to know this. Prison with endless hours to read and think, and I found my peace. The Universe reflects back upon us that which we send out into it. That’s my life experience.

Okay, you can let go of my pocket now. I pray that you never have to come here. I’ll let Highly Suspect and Ozzy Osbourne’s Patient Number 9 close this out. After all, we’re all a bit of a patient while we’re here:

Take this hopeless broke so often, remote control plot twist, a whole generation with no promise. Can you feel my heart? Do you know my name? Can you feel my love? Do you know my pain?

I want to go home…

 

This essay first appeared in Prisoner Express which is a program of the Durland Alternatives Library, located at Cornell University in Ithaca NY.

It was submitted in response to a monthly word prompt. The word: Music.)

Christopher Monihan writes from Madison Correctional Institution in London Ohio. Please share this post with others and Thank you! for following.