I do not need to ask how you are,
as I know you are wonderful.
I am full of joy and splendor
knowing you are waiting for me
on the outside. I long to hear
your whispers and feel your warm
kisses on my face. You are a cool
mountain breeze, your skin is
a meadow in bloom, your scent
like fresh spring flowers, the taste
of you an ocean spray–seeing you
is a beautiful sunrise on desert skies.
I know we have had our differences.
Sometimes I can be stubborn,
and think that I know best.
For this, I am deeply and truly sorry.
I have attempted to elude you,
All the while searching for something,
anything to take the pain away,
just to realize that what I was searching for
was you all along. You were right in front of me
and I was too blinded by my own selfish wants
to see you. But, there you were. Waiting.
You are my truest love: the one thing I desire
most, and I have taken you for granted.
Not again, this is truly the last time.
I want you. I need you. I will never leave you.
Freedom, you are my heart’s desire.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
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.
An Ode to My Heart’s Desire
