An intimate first person non-fiction storytelling experience about incarceration in the United States.
Forward By Christopher
I pause a moment to take in those around me. Old souls whose faces carry deep lines etched by the hand of time. Within this sea of humans are the young and agile moving about without a care or a worry, their sentence a mere inconvenience in their lives.
Most of the time it’s the young crowd that gets to go home. Released through the ever spinning door of incarceration, but truly not free. They will return. Back as a statistic for time has wizened me to this fact.
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FORWARD to Quimby piece below
I remember a fellow, slender of build and young in years, who was new to the chaos of prison life. I watched him from a distance for I knew that he was at a perilous moment in his life. Transitioning from the free world to this world of concrete and iron is akin to skydiving without instruction. You find the rip cord and survive or you plummet to the earth.
Continue reading “Response to suicidal behavior in Ohio prisons”
Last Thursday a girl from my hometown who has been doing time just a little longer than me hung herself. She didn’t die here because ironically it’s against policy for suicides to actually die here. But, officers talk, gossip gets around, and by midafternoon we all knew she was in fact gone. Amazingly she ended her life in the most secure unit on the grounds, segregation. Just goes to show how invisible we all are to the correction officers tasked with watching us. Suicide is tricky on the mind though, triggering memories so far down I forgot their existence.
Forward by Christopher
I’ve met many amazing people throughout my incarceration journey. Behind these walls is a thriving community of humanity unknown to the free world save for close friends and family. Each time worn face here shields hopes and dreams shared by all free people.
T. Brozell, Sr. is a friend of mine. I met him a couple of years ago. He’s a fellow writer, journeyman, and traveler navigating life behind bars, and his journey is close to an end for he will soon return home.
A month has passed since my parole hearing and life is slowly returning to normal. I tap away at the soft rubber keyboard as I sit here typing at the same table I have for years. It has become my “office”. The guys know I’m writing–what exactly, few know–but that I do it daily.I’m in the dayroom and it’s loud. As abnormal as it may seem, I find the noise level comforting because it tells me all is well. Guys slapping dominoes on thick tables and animated card games make up this cacophony of prison life. Behind these pale cinder brick walls the abnormal becomes a new normal.