"Postcard From the Yard" is a series from Prison Journalism Project that presents brief but rich descriptions of a single scene intended to invite the outside reader into the space or moment occupied by the writer. Collectively, these stories build an immersive portrait of prisons across America.
Another sleepless night.
My 220-pound frame barely fits on the small metal bunk where I sleep. My lower back feels the pain of 24 years prone on the thin piece of plastic the Michigan Department of Corrections calls a mattress.
At night, I am enveloped by the darkness of a cement cage. That darkness helps me hide vulnerabilities from predators. Tears pool in my eyes, but even alone I can’t bring myself to really cry. Not because it’s not manly, but because I’ve become numb to the pain.
I replay in my head a conversation I had earlier this year with a guy named Santana. I’ve known him for 12 years. I was eight-and-a-half years into my life without parole sentence when he first arrived at my prison. I liked Santana from the start, so I did the same thing the old heads did with me when I came to prison. I shared knowledge with him I felt would help him on his journey. Now, more than a decade later, Santana is deep into his own LWOP sentence.
During that conversation, he told me he was ready for death.
I was concerned. “You’re not thinking about taking yourself out of the game?”
“Nah, big homie,” he said. “I can’t do that. But I would rather die than live out my days like this.”
I understood where he was coming from. I’ve often had the same thought over the course of my never-ending sentence. I think everyone sentenced to die in prison has that thought at one point.
There are many nights where I have gone to sleep hoping I wouldn’t wake up, only to awaken again to the slow, tortuous reality of death by incarceration. It wears on a person’s mind, body and soul to live an entire life in this dehumanizing environment.
It hurts to know that I’ve served 24 years in prison and am no closer to freedom than I was when I arrived.
Enveloped in that darkness, I can sometimes look up and see the light of the stars. It feels like I’m seeing freedom, but it’s so far away. Still, I keep pushing forward. I keep striving to be a better man.
What other option do I have?
I can’t let the system break me. I can’t give up. I have to be strong. I have to be resilient. I have to be productive. I have to be positive because if I don’t, I will lose hope, and the pain of life without parole will kill me. Maybe then they will consider justice to be served.
