10/3/2008

An inmate that I know attempted suicide last night. He was in the SHV or the hold and hanged himself. THe guards are supposed to check cells every 15 minutes, they didn['t. The person you share the cell with is supposed to stop you or at least push the emergency button; he didn't. He's in a medical induced coma, no one knows if he will make it. It won't be reported in the papers or on the T.V. news. It happens more than anyone on the houtside knows or cares. They (wardens) keep it hush hush and report that the inmate population has decreased over the last year so the system must be working. Yeah, right.

9/29/2008

In my age of concrete, I am anything but. I offer no support, no stability, no foundation. My friends and family suffer and reach out. I'm nothing, a mist, an ethereal body perpetually oozing suffering to all around me. Even when not tainting the people I love I have no ability to comfort or console but only whisper prayers alone in my cell. But who hears? The suffering only continues for everyone.

9/24/2008

Well another busy day and by busy I mean more than one thing that needs to be done a day. I had my theeth cleaning finished (by the same vomit girl) and she was fine today. I also finally moved to the south side of the East hall where it is much quieter. I can still hear the north side from here if that tells you how noisy it is over there. On another plus side is the fact Ithat I'm at the end of the tier so there is absolutely no traffic except people coing to see me. Wow! What a blessing! It really is a pain in the butt to move but hopefully this will be the last time for a long, long while. I found out today that I have to take pictures at a muslim special holiday event. It pissed me off at first since the holiday is on a thursday night and I'll have to miss my theology class, but I got over it quickly when I  found out that I get to partake in th eir feast which includes real steak gyros with all the fiings (jalapeno poppers and strawberry cheese cake!) REAL FOOD! Shit, I'd convert to Islam if I got to eat like that on a regular basis! Ha ha! It's weird though, food commercials are more arousing than hot chicks on T.V. I'm a fat man and food ads are my porn! Ha! If I had a choice between a deep dish pizza and a hot brunette? Hmm... PIZZA!

9/23/2008

I went to the dentist today for a cleaning. It's like a 8 month waiting list once you sign up for it, so even though inconvenient, I went. I quickly realized that the inmates are Guinea pigs for second year students. So while I'm in a very compromising position this kid (seriously) is poking around my mouth and naturally I start to taste blood. I don't know if it was my bleeding gums, the heat or her nerves but she lost it. Seriously. She announced she was going to faint and then ran to the bathroom (which isn't far away) and threw up. Well I felt bad, not that it's my fault, but the other two inmates thought this was the funniest thing EVER! And what could only be descried as half choking/gagging and half laughing I could tell they couldn't wait to have the other students fingers removed from their mouths so they could make wise cracks. Sure enough comments were made to the absent vomiting female student and several were made about my breath and condition of my teeth. I was excused and told my cleaning will be finished tomorrow, end of story, right? WRONG! To my surpirse the new traveled through the Lifetime Network (the name I give the gossiping lifers here) and received a slap on the back accompanied with what insults, jokes, comments you can think of. I didn't take it personally, there is so little humor in here, that you have to learn to take the laughs when you can. What a day! You can't make this stuff up! Nothing really else new here. A couple of fights today, one close enough I had to clean my cell bars of blood splatter. Yuck! The fights have become so common that I don't really pay attention anymore. This one went right by my cell and worked its way down the tier. I glanced up, noted I needed to clean my bars and went back to reading.

9/17/2008

All the theological studies, meditation and praying and I still caught myself lying today. About a week ago a member of cornerstone prison fellowship church and one of the "outsiders" who came in on a regular basis died. Dick (that's the fellow's name) had a long life, I think he wan in his 80's but he died suddenly when the tractor tire he was changing blew up. I really didn't know him, shook his hand when I went to Friday Church, and yet when I'm asked if I knew him well, I say "Yes, he was a good and kind man." I wonder why I feel the need to lie? Am I so desperate for real human connection that I cling to a fake friendship of a dead man?

9/14/2008

Toes grip and cling, hanging over the ledge of the highest cliff I've ever seen. Actually I don't know if it is high or not because staring down, I can see nothing but black. Not a nighttime black, but a lack of everything black, a hole devoid of anything, so devoid of anything that my eyes swim and flex in and out of focus trying, straining to fixate on anything at all. I have to will them to relax and not strain. There's no fear when I stare down, I know the ground is firm, I know there is no wind or anything else that puts me in jeopardy of falling forward. I am alone and inf act feel nothing. No joy, no sadness, no anticipation, no disappointment, nothing, just blank. I call down to the void "Hello? Is anybody there? Hello?" No answer, no echo, the blackness even voids my voice swallows all sound. No frustration of disappointment I do an about-face and start walking away from the cliff and void. The land is flat and dry... no color, well gray if that's a color, the light around me is an ambient light having no direct source. I walk and walk and eventually wake up in my cell. That is the dream I've had for about four nights now. NO changes, nothing added or different night after night. Starts at the cliff and ends with me walking.

Quote of the week:

"Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and kindles of fire."
- La Rochefaoucauld (1613-1680)

9/13/2008

Weird dreams for a while now. Probably the food here. Nothing but starches, carbs and junk food. Waiting for my anime shows to start. I'm glad that my shows are starting up again soon. Chuck, The Office, Heroes, Pushing Daisies. I need a TiVo, will someone out there petition the prison for TiVo? I can't neglect my reading and studies though, if it comes down to studies and T.V. I'll unplug the T.V.

7/16/08

Wow! Two days in a row writing! Oh, but I'm anxious. I don't know why but my head is spinning with spiritual thoughts, desperate thoughts, seeking thoughts. It's probably the combination of getting a letter from my aunt who is the most liberal, spiritual-seeking person in my family, that along with the theology class and reading the Dali Lama's "The Good Heart". I seem to be a spiritual tweeker, like a person desperately seeking his lost car keys in a craze swearing up and down that "they have to be here somewhere", that's the way I'm searching for God, for truth. The reading of Biblical scriptures, systematic theology, Buddhist philosophy and psychology. desert father writings, contemplative prayer brochures, mixed with my own meditation, prayer and yoga may seek like the oddest combination, but, but, but, "I know I left my self-realization here somewhere! God's self-revelation and his plan for me must be here somewhere!" Ha, ha! Like a said, a spiritual tweeker. I've never tried meth but I talk to people inside here and how you take a hit and your mind goes into one-track mode and you think or do little else than the one thing that you're stuck on. Yeah, that's me only crazier. 95% of my day is spend thinking about some spiritual or religious thing. The other 5% is being caught up in prison bullshits. Yeah, spiritual tweeker, truth seeker. I think I'm going crazy but so far I love it.

7/15/08

I Think I have just read the most touching, beautiful and personal paragraphs. No other writing has spoken to me and about what I'm feeling. It is an excerpt from "The Seven Story Mountain" written by Thomas Merton. It is a meditation of God speaking directly to Thomas and in so doing, speaking to me in a round about way also. Here it is:


"When you have been praised a little and loved a little I will take away all your gifts and all your love and all your praise and you will be utterly forgotten and abandoned and you will be nothing, a dead thing, a rejection. And in that day you shall begin to possess the solitude you have so long desired. And your solitude will bear immense fruit in the souls of men you will never see on earth.


Do not ask when it will be or where it will be or how it will be: On a mountain or in a prison, in a desert or in a concentration camp or in a hospital or at Gethsemane. It does not matter. So do not ask me, because I am not going to tell you. You will not know until you are in it.


But you shall taste the true solitude of my anguish and my poverty and I shall lead you into the high places of My joy and you shall die in Me and find all things in My mercy which has created you for the end..."


Well, that's it. Painfully perfect, accurate, personal and beautiful.

7/12/08

So many ups and downs in here. Actually...that's bullshit. It's more like constantly treading water just to keep your head above the line. That's a good day. It is exhausting and sometimes you feel like you're going to drown. Like today. There are some things you know are coming and yet when they do, you still feel like you've been impaled on a red hot spike. Like my sentencing, my divorce, and my friend "S" finally visit and good-bye. I say friend but there really isn't any words to describe who she is and what she has meant to me. My guardian angel, the one I confessed my long to end it all when all this shit first hit. The angel that can to this very day ask me the simple question, "How are you?" and when I give my generic answer of "I'm fine" will stare intently at me and say "No you are not, what's really going on?" I then get blurry-eyed from the pain she makes me face, the mask she sees right through, and the frustration I fell because I can never fool her. It is looking into those eyes that I've told her things and shared feelings that I would never, could never, tell anyone else. All those visits and support she gave me through my county time and my time here on the hill, when 95% of the rest of my family and friends won't visit or write, they all just vanished like smoke in a strong wind, she is my rock.

There is absolutely no one else closer to me, dearer to me on a spiritual level. She is my counselor, my prophets, my hope, and the only physical presence in my life that shines God's grace and mercy on me. I gaze into her eyes and I literally see God's love working in her and working through her. What a delight to have her in my life! A wonderful mother, a loving wife, a strong, smart, beautiful Christian woman; she embodies everything I dare to dream for if I ever get out of here. If I could find a woman just half as good as her, I would live the rest of my years in bliss. And now she is gone. Oh, she'll write, of that I'm sure, but it will never be the same. How do you thank the sun for the warmth and life it has brought to you? How do you properly praise the flower for bringing the only fragrance of live and hope you've felt in the last 3 years? She was my spiritual sounding board, my right hand in all things of God and I have been amputated.

I've been left empty, a void has been created, my thirst left unquenched. I will miss her painfully every day. My last time seeing her for who knows how long and I couldn't do anything but express my own selfish fears and worries about her leaving. I couldn't even tell her how I feel/felt about her and what she means/meant to me. I made several attempts only to get choked up and have tears run down my cheeks. It took all my strength not to blubber and weep all over her. Can't have that, gotta man up, there are inmates and guards watching, you know. I'll save it all till I am alone tonight. Thank you for everything "S". I love you tremendously and will miss absolutely everything about you.

7/06/08

Wow. I haven't written in my "journal" for awhile. I guess that is what happens when there is not much going on. My best friend T comes to visit every weekend. I haven't seen E in about a month now. My aunt from another state came to visit and it was wonderful but nothing I feel like sharing here. (Those are my memories to keep.) I have some more books on the way although I don't know why wince I have plenty to read to begin with. It's an addiction,k this book collecting. I had a poem published in a prison ministry booklet. I submitted another to Quiet Mountain Essays but I haven't heard back yet. I've been writing some more but nothing is edited or refined. I started coloring the mandala that I created more than 8 months ago. I continue with my theology studies, my religious readings and my fantasy/sci-fi readings. It honestly alternates to whatever my mood for the day is. I still watch my shows: The Office, My Name Is Earl, Bleach, Deathnote and various other anime. I still feel a strong urge to draw/paint/create but still too lazy to teach myself or practice. The same goes for the guitar I have in my cell. I still have my chapel job and am thankful for it because it is the only air-conditioned place in the prison, oh yeah, and the free coffee too. I recently redecorated my cork board where I gets to pin up my pictures. I took down all the pictures of my kids and ex-wife and other people I had hanging that aren't in my life anymore. I figured why torture myself any longer staring at them. The only people left up there are people who still are and are still in contact. The rest of the "pictures" are nature shots art I find interesting and religious materials. Well that's it for me. I wish everyone out there reading this a happy and safe 4th of July weekend.

Beauty Let Down

Staring out my cell door through the bars
Gazing out the thick cubed security glass
I lose myself in the beauty of an orange sunset
Only to realize it's the sodium security light, just come one.
A trick of the light;
A trick on my slight.
With a sigh, I go back to reading.

Longing

In a world of concrete walls, floors and walkways, my feet ache to feel a massaging walk in cool spongy thick emerald fields of fragrant grass. I long to dip my hands into crystal cool waters and have rivulets tickling me all the way down to my elbows.

In a world of steel mesh and bars colored gray and concrete walls that are white-washed, my eyes thirst to drink in flawless blue skies deep enough to lose yourself in. I long to feast upon rolling hills of flowers every color of the rainbow and watch them sway, dance and bow in the breeze. I long to gaze upon snow-capped mountains that majestically defy time and stretch their grandeur to the heavens.

In a world filled constantly with lies, sarcasm, profanity and hatred, my ears strain to hear the whispering sighs of the wind moving through the trees, the soothing laughter of mountain streams and the quiet meditative sounds of nature surrounding me.

7/01/08

Grace and Mercy
by #48018

It only hurts when I'm awake and when I'm asleep, dreaming.
It only hurts when hearing the metallic clank of my cell door and whenever I hear a child's laugh.
It only hurts when I reflect on the good times and when I remember the not-so-good times.
It only hurts when no one writes or visits and when they do write and visit.
It only hurts when...It only hurts when...It only hurts when...
(shh) stop. Quiet - breathe in.
(shh) Psalms 46:10 - breathe out.
"Be still and know that I am God."
In a single span of a breath
In the space between in and out.

Grace and Mercy

And my cheeks are wet with gratitude.