An intimate first person non-fiction storytelling experience about incarceration in the United States.
Six years ago, I started this blog.
If I could experience the outside world, where through my pen I break free from the bondage of prison, it would all be worth it, I had thought.
For decades, I have trekked through the desert known as American corrections, where justice is mirage and corruption the only oasis.
Think about the past 31 years of your life.
That’s 31 blazing summers where fireflies danced through twilight evenings and crickets fiddled through the night. Camp outs, cookouts, and 31 Christmases that gifted way to hopeful new years.
I recently started my 31st year in prison.
Continue reading “Where I Am Does Not Define Me by Christopher”
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.
Continue reading “My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark by Christopher”
I sometimes find myself reflecting back upon events in my life. For reasons I can’t explain, these are events that didn’t impact me nearly as much then as they do now.
There are a handful of times in my life where Death came for me but Fate denied its prize. My family knows about one or two of those times. There are several.
Continue reading “Drowning Hurts Until It Doesn’t by Christopher”
This is an all-encompassing statement, but for today I’d like to specifically focus on the problems within our criminal justice and carceral systems. Michigan has the country’s worst carceral instincts, systems, guidelines and politics in the nation. I’m hoping to shine a light on the shortcomings within these systems and to point out some areas where we took some very serious wrong turns while stressing to everyone the need for some serious change.
Continue reading “Michigan…We’ve Got Problems by Amber Martens”