PRISONER EXPRESS

My celebrations come one day at a time. The three meals I receive a day are more than more worthy people in the world get a week. The clothes of my back although prison garb is cheap and gaudy, and a constant reminder of oppression, it is free and I need not worry about washing them. I have a roof over my head, it isn't my choice but again, there are more worthy people in the world who don't even had a bed much less a roof. I celebrate the end of each day, for it is a day done, one day closer to a new life I will have. These are just the small, seemingly insignificant things, but to someone who can't count how many celebrations he can recall on two fingers after forty years, it is better than being continually in a state of simplicity.

I also celebrate my education, the knowledge amassed after seventeen years. Knowledge acquired through experience and observation. Knowledge, like blood, isn't thicker than water. The last ones to ever let you down in any situation will be strangers (to include the undertaker.) There are no such things as a friend or soul mate, love, peace, and hope are illusions, devices people use to use you. The fact that I am in prison doesn't make me any less righteous than TV evangelists or self-righteous Baptists. Prison only means that all my evil acts have been exposed, I have been judged and society in their farce civility has accomplished condemnation on me in order to hid their own dirty laundry. The fact that my life has and is exposed gives me a greater level of self-independence because now I can point fingers without guilt. At last, I am able to celebrate every day for I have changed. The life I will soon begin will be of independence, free of social threats and schemes. A new life without hidden faults can't be covered by shadows.

Jack Jerouac states; "Prison is the place you promise yourself to live." All of these seemingly insignificant events and factors are mortar in the bricks of a new life not yet built. When we are able to celebrate the small things, the precious Kodak moments are suddenly filled with words of Kodak's ancient theme, "The Times of your Life". For if I choose to marry, again, have children and lead an openly public social life, then everyday will have an abundance of small "celebrations" that I neglected in my previous life.

Every day I wake up to regrets, moments and memories forever lost, the should've could've and would've possibilities hauntingly real. But the potential for greater celebrations rise like mountains on the plains, celebrations of what will be. And that is a reason to celebrate in itself.