As a recipient of a 24-hour lock down with the COVID-19 viral pandemic, my fear and paranoia is at an all-time high. No alternative it seems is made for those of us who need to vent about our fears. 

This fear is spoken in the confessional booth, aka the vent that connects our vents. I express them when the American Prison Writing Archive gives my body a voice and a chance to ask for help. The world should see this, yet to be honest it does not matter, right? Worlds are colliding when I am only worried about the officers’ lives, because they could possibly bring the COVID-19 into here to me. What about my one lung, my asthma, open thoracic surgery, craniotomy, and a tracheostomy? This is me — Christopher Reginald Cox Jr — 441292, 2390623. What of the fact my medical file says I was sent out in 2019 twice for respiratory issues in an ambulance? Do officials know my life matters? These are questions that are whispered through the confessional booths.

The medical unit here is running around so much that they’re short of staff. I feel for them because they too are lost. How can they treat someone that is allergic to Flagyl, Ciprol and Penicillin, the antibiotics that are available here? So now Medical is afraid to give me meds, so do I suffer or what? Chocolate, fish, seafood and Ibuprofen are added to this list. Should Medical be prepared to encounter that number one inmate and say we need to do our research or should they just place me in a bubble?

How can prison improve? I don’t know. Yet this is not a complaint, this is a cry. I tattooed teardrops on my face at the age of 17 because I no longer wanted to shed tears. They threaten to fall now because of the anger that is in my heart. The strongest part of my body is my mind. So when I say I love APWA for this chance it is said with my mind because it is strong. The weakness is the heart in my chest because I don’t understand the policies and procedures that are constantly broken. Confusion scares me. Uncertainty scares us. Unanswered voices are the here, present, and now! It is here, present and now… My hands shake so I must stop.

X

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Prison Journalism Project is happy to share our writers and reporters’ stories with your print and online audiences. You are free to republish them under a Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted on the page. You can use the URL or copy and paste the story into your CMS.

Here are our ground rules:

• You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
• No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
• No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
• No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
• No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
• No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
• Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
• If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
• If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
• Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.

The Fear in the Confessional Booth

by AAA Aaaauthor, Prison Journalism Project
August 27, 2020

<h1>The Fear in the Confessional Booth</h1> <p class="byline">by AAA Aaaauthor, Prison Journalism Project <br />August 27, 2020</p> <p>As a recipient of a 24-hour lock down with the COVID-19 viral pandemic, my fear and paranoia is at an all-time high. No alternative it seems is made for those of us who need to vent about our fears.&nbsp;</p> <p>This fear is spoken in the confessional booth, aka the vent that connects our vents. I express them when the American Prison Writing Archive gives my body a voice and a chance to ask for help. The world should see this, yet to be honest it does not matter, right? Worlds are colliding when I am only worried about the officers’ lives, because they could possibly bring the COVID-19 into here to me. What about my one lung, my asthma, open thoracic surgery, craniotomy, and a tracheostomy? This is me — Christopher Reginald Cox Jr — 441292, 2390623. What of the fact my medical file says I was sent out in 2019 twice for respiratory issues in an ambulance? Do officials know my life matters? These are questions that are whispered through the confessional booths.</p> <p>The medical unit here is running around so much that they’re short of staff. I feel for them because they too are lost. How can they treat someone that is allergic to Flagyl, Ciprol and Penicillin, the antibiotics that are available here? So now Medical is afraid to give me meds, so do I suffer or what? Chocolate, fish, seafood and Ibuprofen are added to this list. Should Medical be prepared to encounter that number one inmate and say we need to do our research or should they just place me in a bubble?</p> <p>How can prison improve? I don’t know. Yet this is not a complaint, this is a cry. I tattooed teardrops on my face at the age of 17 because I no longer wanted to shed tears. They threaten to fall now because of the anger that is in my heart. The strongest part of my body is my mind. So when I say I love APWA for this chance it is said with my mind because it is strong. The weakness is the heart in my chest because I don’t understand the policies and procedures that are constantly broken. Confusion scares me. Uncertainty scares us. Unanswered voices are the here, present, and now! It is here, present and now… My hands shake so I must stop.</p> <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2020/08/27/fear-in-the-confessional-booth/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org">Prison Journalism Project</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/prisonjournalismproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-PJP-favicon-2.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=316&ga=" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p>

1