PRISONER EXPRESS

Many tragedies have occurred in my basically happy existence, as happens in all lives. Each turning created a circumstance giving me choices. My decisions were seldom good ones. At each of these turning points life is renewed and we are restored to hope.

My last turning point came when I faced the reality of my mortality and the sure understanding that I would never live to be free in body again. For me, there were no more chances. All I could expect was the release of death to free me. What a thought... nothing to look forward to save that ultimate ending.

Humanity fled from me and I flew from humanity. That left me more animal than human. Bound by a system that had destroyed my hope, I went to war against the system. There was honor to be found fighting a battle I could never win, so I felt. It was pure insanity and I was simply insane.

Where is the pride in resorting to violence as a salve for my wounded spirit? It does not exist. Violence is an act of despair and I was desperate to find worth in life. Humanity had given up on me so I retaliated by giving up my humanity. All this did was perpetuate the cycle of pain. My eyes were blinded by my aching loneliness and fear.

As I tread the bottom of a bottomless abyss, the abyss filled the void in my soul with darkness. Still there was within me a yearning to find worth and a future. Totally by accident two unique and wonderful people entered my life. In Gary and Ramsay I found hope. They saw in me potential, at their hands the embers of my intellect became a flame that lit the abyss. Despair cannot exist in the light of intellect. It took people who could see my worth for me to see worth in myself.

Though my body is bound by barriers of concrete and steel, my mind is free. Once released to wander, I came to glory in learning. My cell is now an educational hermitage. Though I had no one, now I have a goal and two good friends. Studies carry me back in time and all across this wide world. I am finally becoming capable of expressing the horror that prison realistically is as well as the hope that abides in every heart bound there.

Penned in cages where ignorance and despair find fertile ground to breed, there are many, like myself, with little or no hope of freedom. We must never succumb or give up our humanity. Our minds are our tickets to freedom. A mind can only be bound by ignorance. All of us need to embrace any chance to grow intellectually. Let books fill your time and enhance your ability to think. Study for the sake of knowledge if you have no access to a degree program. Being well read is being well educated.

Learn to write succinctly and with passion. We, as prisoners, are the only ones with the experiences to show prison in its truest light. Those outside these walls don't know the truth. If they see these hell holes through our eyes, they will rise up and demand that prisons be forever changed. Most do not know. We must make them see. Not for ourselves; for the generations which come after us. Other answers must be found to societies' problems. Prison is not an answer. Prison is another of the problems that must be faced.

In books and studies you have a second chance. The question is what you will do with it. Each of us has value as fellow human beings. Will you see the value in others that they might see the value in you? Make this last chance count. In each of us is worth. Find yours that you can make a difference for all of us even generations to come.

Second chances are for everyone, as is this last last chance. All people have times when they are bound, if not by prison's stark walls then by the vagaries of life that rip wounds in our spirits. In all times knowledge has been a balm for such injuries: healing broken hearts and restoring shattered dreams. It may fill the void left by loss or loneliness. Answers found in study show us we are not alone. Our fates have been shared through all of history. In some sense we realize that unbroken chain of sorrow will surely continue. Our stories may one day be a salve to another's pain. The last last chance is for everyone. It's a challenge to grow and embrace all humanity to reach out to a fellow traveler and lift him up and in the process we will all be too busy to hurt or be lonely.