I’m sick and the medicine no longer works. I hurt and the therapy doesn’t heal. My soul is either broken or in the process of breaking. Life seems to be leading nowhere, just spinning my tires in the mud, pushing the accelerator, hoping to gain traction. It’s days like these living in a cell that I don’t want to do anything.
My past will always precede me. I face it each day when I wake up and every night before bed. My life and my character is stained and there’s no magic eraser for this. I can try everything possible, basketball, working out, school… it just doesn’t go away. Can I rise above it? Can I co-exist with this? If so, can someone show me how? I need to buy in. To trick myself into believing everything is ok. I need to have confidence and believe that I can still have a wonderful life. I am not happy although I smile. I can’t convince myself that anything is worth the effort. I just want to leave. I want to go home.
I’d love to disappear, to simply ease the pain. I’d love to not be conscious of where I am. This shit hurts and I feel there’s no other way for me to live. I find ways to numb the ache, to skip out on the daily activities called life. I’m here, but I’m not. I’m on cruise control, asleep at the wheel. There are other ways to live but are they worth it? I’m still doing well in school, but this place is driving me mad.
Give me something. A brief escape, something to ease my nerves and soothe my soul. I’m at the breaking point and can’t find a reason to stay motivated or to get through each day with my head held high. There’s an itch I can’t scratch. The nothingness of this place is draining.
Being on constant lockdown is eating at my insides, devouring me from within. What I enjoy doesn’t last and keeps me constantly searching for more. I’m running in circles. I have no place to enter. Getting lost is what helps me find myself each day. Does that make sense? It probably shouldn’t because I can’t make sense of the mayhem most days. It’s not the life I hoped for, but I’m making the most of it, right? I tell myself yes, but my dark side continues to drag me down into the mud. Relax and take the edge off, help me to pass the time, give me patience to deal with the politics and characters in this place. But I’m still miserable and sick. Lost, with no direction.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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.