Posted inPoetry

I Am a Juvenile

by Ramiro Leon April 20, 2023April 20, 2023

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Close window 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.

I Am a Juvenile

by Ramiro Leon, Prison Journalism Project
April 20, 2023

<h1>I Am a Juvenile</h1>
<p class="byline">by Ramiro Leon, Prison Journalism Project <br />April 20, 2023</p>
 
</p>
<div class="wp-block-group poetry-indent-group">
<p>I am a juvenile.</p>
<p>I wonder what happened to my childhood. I hear chains and shackles, I see the main tower, and I stand up in the face of the exercise yard. I want a new pair of eyes, eyes that will help me see my role in life differently. I am a juvenile.</p>
</p></div>
<div class="wp-block-group poetry-indent-group">
<p>I pretend this is a dream, while I stare disbelieving. I feel the wind in my face, I listen intently to the sounds, I feel alive. I touch a risk; the great hazard in life is to risk nothing.</p>
<p>I worry how a man endures, how he can be so cold. I cry sometimes because I have not a thing to my name. I am a juvenile.</p>
</p></div>
<div class="wp-block-group poetry-indent-group">
<p>I understand the size of my heart, and discovered the luster to life. I say to you, “happiness is good health and a bad memory.” I dream I invent something new. I try to fall in love many times with the same person.</p>
<p>I hope she is strong enough to love me. I pray to be forgiven and be a father. I am a juvenile&nbsp;…</p>
</p></div>


 <p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2023/04/20/prison-poem-growing-up-inside/">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=29257" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p>

Dogs in a caged kennel — Photo by celiafoto on Depositphotos

Prison Journalism Project trains incarcerated writers to become journalists and publishes their stories. Subscribe to Inside Story to receive exclusive behind-the-scene looks at our best stories, as well as author profiles and other insights.

I am a juvenile.

I wonder what happened to my childhood. I hear chains and shackles, I see the main tower, and I stand up in the face of the exercise yard. I want a new pair of eyes, eyes that will help me see my role in life differently. I am a juvenile.

I pretend this is a dream, while I stare disbelieving. I feel the wind in my face, I listen intently to the sounds, I feel alive. I touch a risk; the great hazard in life is to risk nothing.

I worry how a man endures, how he can be so cold. I cry sometimes because I have not a thing to my name. I am a juvenile.

I understand the size of my heart, and discovered the luster to life. I say to you, “happiness is good health and a bad memory.” I dream I invent something new. I try to fall in love many times with the same person.

I hope she is strong enough to love me. I pray to be forgiven and be a father. I am a juvenile …

STORIES LIKE THIS…
are made possible by people like you who help Prison Journalism Project fulfill our mission to train incarcerated people to become journalists and publish their stories. We aim to empower a marginalized community to be a vital voice in criminal justice reform.

Help bring transparency to the world of mass incarceration by making a monthly donation.

Donate

Ramiro Leon

Ramiro Leon is a writer incarcerated in California.

More by Ramiro Leon

Help unlock the stories of those on the inside

Related Stories

Ramiro Leon