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Essay: "Isolation and Solitude"

by Gary Jimenez
In the solitude of my cell I smile, giggle and laugh, alone. I have become institutionalized and comfortable with who I am and what I have become. I read in a magazine advertisement of a t-shirt decal that said something to the effect of “I would rather die hated for what I am than die loved for who I am not.” That’s me since I can recall!! Everything I write or try to write stems from this side of me.

“And when you’re looking for your freedom…/Nobody seems to care and you can’t find the door/Can’t find it anywhere… when there’s nothing to/believe in… you keep runnin’ back and coming back/and runnin’ back for more…/so put me on a highway and show me a sign/and take it to the limit one more time…”

Every now and then when I listen to that old Eagles song on the radio I feel that those words resonate within me as if they’re composed just for me. Who grew up to be a wanderer, a seeker, adventurer, a vagabond looking for fortune " but mostly finding misfortune. A poet at heart, on a life-long odyssey… that will end somewhere. God only knows. Though I wish I could live to be a hundred!

One of these future nights I know I am going to find myself no longer here yet I never really even ponder how I am going to stay out. And it amazes me because I know for a fact that if I truly set my mind to staying out I could do it. I do look around me and wonder what the hell I enjoy out of being here??? Perhaps it’s the solitude of this cell " I can put on my headphones and listen to the music’s and just leave everything behind " I’m just a presence to be counted at count time yet intangible and visible to no one and existing for no other reason than my own pleasure and nothing more. “So put me on a highway and show me a sign.”

At the core of my heart I know that I’ve had this taste of ruin and that I like it, but there is still hope for you who has never been here. The world needs people like me to tell you about in here " trust me if you’re a survivor types than you just might like it in here, but if you’re not you’ll miss home and your family and lover(s) as well as home cooking and life itself… but I wish you stay free!!!