The journal of Timothy N. BakerTable of Contents:
December 31st 2004 9:30 pmAs I sit here and wait for another year to come to an end, not really wanting or caring for a new one to begin, I think about my life. It's not easy to put into words the way I feel, I can't look to the future with anything but sadness and the few happy memories I have are tainted because I know how they turn out in the end. Though I still dream of a life far different and happier than this one, one where I am not locked away, one where I have friends and family who care, I still can't figure out how or why my life turned out this way... The State has branded me a criminal, someone unfit to live in society, someone so dangerous I must be locked in a cage for the rest of my life... As a child my mother came to the same conclusion... My journey seems to have started there. As a child 14 years old I wasn't an angel I know, but what did I do for her to toss me away as if I had no feelings... I had to choice in the matter. Being under age my mother was able to do what she wanted with me with the State's blessing... And that's just what they did, from the way I understand, our society believes locking someone away is a humane way to deal with people who violate our laws. Once upon a time there was a lot of rehabilitation programs to help us re-enter society as law-abiding productive citizens but that seems to have disappeared for the most part. Now we are housed inside of cages where hate, sadness, insanity flourishes day and night... And I am left wondering where do I go from here. I guess that's the question of the day! And one I have no answer to... Though there are only two choices I can make it's probably the hardest decision I have ever been forced to make. "A New Year": A Poem by Timothy Baker Another year gone to waste One more life conquered by hate Year after lonely year Just wishing that death was near Tomorrows Sun will reveal my Tears Knowing I will never leave here Another year gone to waste This lonely place is my fate This blazing fire my Hate has fed Inside my hope lies cold and dead The only year I wish to see Is the one where they do away with me Another year gone to waste Once again Black reeking bird you are late Am I forever to remain Locked inside this Pain Can any one tell me why I am not allowed to die With all this noise, I do believe a New Year is upon us. And one thing I have come to realize is that is I am ever to have a life without Pain and Sadness then its up to me, and me alone to find it. To take it and protect it, but that road has so many twists and turns, I fear it! I fear the choices I have to make because somewhere I know Sadness waits, but for who I do not know... January 1st 2005 1:15AMTo survive in any environment is really not that difficult. The human body and the human mind adapt very easy to almost anythig we can place it in, with no help from us our minds and bodies will "protect itself" by adapting to its surroundings. But to prosper, to conquer your surroundings so that they adapt to you takes cunning, takes willpower, it takes discipline, it takes courage and it takes motivation, but above all it takes intelligence. An intelligent man knows his strengths and his weaknesses. He knows them, and he is always trying to improve them. An intelligent man can look at a problem and find out what he needs to overcome this problem. He also must find out what he must do mentally to overcome it also... If you are strong mentally your body will follow... But if you are weak mentally you will break given time... I do not plan to break; I will conquer or die doing what any man will do: "Trying". It seems to be in our human nature to find the easy way out, and I am no different. Every morning I must find it within myself to continue, with nothing to continue for this is a very difficult task, it's one that I struggle with everyday and since I am still here I seem to be winning this battle, though at times it doesn't seem like it... I consider myself a sensitive person. I will help anyone, well almost anyone. I may have done some crimes where people have been hurt, but not physically. I have never hurt someone who I didn't feel was trying to hurt me. But I find myself changing. I have come to realize society doesn't care about that, our law enforcement officials are cold-blooded killers with society's blessings... A man who doesn't have a good enough job to pay all his bills and support his children will be thrown in jail. If he does a crime like break in a house or rob someone for as little as $10 bucks he will be torn from his family. His children will lose their father, his wife will lose her husband. He will lose his home, his car, he will lose his whole life. The State, with society's blessings, will throw him in a cage which costs liek 25 thousand dollars a year... Instead of helping him before he does his crime in the first place. Help him to do right, help his kids... But they would rather tear his life apart... And the person he stole from, the person he robbed, they will go on in life just as before, maybe a little cautious, maybe a little fearful, but never as bad as the one who did the crime. As I look at the way our society is set up, the ruthfullness they employ upon the lower class citizens who break its laws, all my sympathy disappears, all my compassion withers away and a heart once warm and soft turns to cold hard stone, and society can't get mad at me because they made me who I am. Because if anyone doesn't believe being locked in a cage for years at a time, being made to live like an animal, doesn't do somehitng to us is flat out stupid. I have finally washed my hands of the whole mess. I have washed them with the unshed tears this life has given me... And I feel like I lost something. I feel empty. But maybe this is better because now they can not hurt me. January 1st 10:00AM "2005"As you will see during the course of this journal, my emotions will swing wide sometimes, a lot of what I write is done so "in the heat of the moment" I may be angry or sad and I'll write whatever is on my mind. Some of what I write may seem shocking to you, but I hope you will remember this is my personal thoughts I am expressing and no matter what I think it is only my actions that may be judged by man. Even though I do feel very strongly about the things I write about, sometimes I do get carried away. I have been trying for the last month to get back on my workout routine. Back in August 29th, 2004, I took an officer hostage and I was beaten pretty bad and I was unable to do any kind of exercise for a good while... My muscles became very weak from lack of use and now as I am trying to get back to where I was, I tend to be lazy. Motivation is very hard back here in administrative segregation. But slowly and surely I am getting back in shape. My goal is to run for 1 hour straight, 5 hundred lunges, 5 hundred squats, 5 hundred push ups every day Monday through Saturday then I'll do other exercises like curls, pull ups, back arms, sit ups, crunchs, leg lifes, etc. every other day plys my daily routine... :) I have all the time in the world to accomplish this goal. I have completed my Bible study today. I do them to keep my mind "fit". Your brain is like a muscle, if you don't exercise it, it will get weak, so I read the Bible and do studies. I really don't believe in the Christian God but not many places will send in "Studies for Free" and the prison does not provide any sort of learning in segregation. I read anything, of interest, and try to learn from it... Not only does my Bible studies exercise my mind, but it also helps me discipline myself, as does my writing in this journal everyday before I go to bed. But I'll also do it when I feel I have something worth saying! From reading and hearing people talk, I feel I have 3 ganglion cysts in different parts of my body. They cause me some pain during my exercises. I am going to go to the doctor and see what can be done with them. I have a friend who has a medical text book and from what it says, the only option I have is to have them cut out, and if it's correct, even if Texas does want to cut me up "which I doubt" I won't do it. I'll never let these "quacks" touch me unless it's a life and death matter... I've seen some people get operated on in here and I don't want it to happen to me... January 2nd 2005 10:05 PM Sunday!The weekends seem to drag on forever, nothing really happens on the weekends, no mail, no recreation, no medical lay ins, nothing, unless you get visits which are only on the weekend. Then you're kinda just hanging around. Luckily I have been moved to a unit close to some of my family in Waco, so I will start getting visits here and there which I hope will help me cope with being locked up. I received 2 cards for Christmas - from my mother and my aunt Michelle her sister... I don't think I will respond as much as I want to. I know nothing will come of it. They won't answer my letters. I may hear from them on the holidays but that's only a card with their signatures in it. I wish when we are born we can pick our familys because some people don't deserve to have children. I wrote a poem today; it's called "The Empty Jar" If Hate was Human It would be a girl and her name would be Cynderella If Anger was Human it would be a boy and his name would be Woody wood pecker They would fall in lust and have a son who is named Skippy Peanut Butter They would all eat and eat Skippy Peanut Butter until he is no more Then throw the Jar away. As tempted as I am to send this poem to my mother, to hurt her as she has hurt me, because thought most people will not know what this poem refers to, but my family will. For my mother is named Cindy, my father was called Woody and my nickname as a kid was Skippy... I do not wish to hurt them as they have done to me. January 3rd 2005 Monday! 11:35pmI let my temper get the better of me time and time again even though I know I'm getting angry I can't seem to stop it and once again I find myself in trouble. I was moved into a cell 7 days ago... I had just got comfortable, I cleaned the whole cell, I got to know who was who, and then today, they decided to move me again for no apparent reason. I hope maybe the captain will let me slide on this one, but I won't hold my breath. I have been sticking with my workout routine pretty good, I find the soreness bothersome but not too bad, given time I'm sure it will not be all that bad. Sometimes when I am waiting on something, whether it's a letter or a visit, I feel helpless. I have no control of anything in my life anymore. I gave up that right when I committed my crimes but it still bothers me... January 4th, 2005 Tuesday 10:03pmI was flipping through an old issue of Readers Digest from March 2004 and I came across an article called America's Dumbest Criminals. I was rather surprised to see my name and my escape from the county jail in the lead story... It amazes me how our society makes jokes out of things like this. If I would have been a ruthless criminal and killed or hurt someone they would have called me a monster but because I chose not to do so they call me dumb. Interesting!! I didn't do all my work out routine today. It sometimes is so pointless to do anything to better myself or my surroundings. I get so tired of just living. I guess maybe I suffer from depression or something! I received a letter today from my cousin who hasn't wrote in a long while... But I forgive her; she at least writes to me. January 5th, 2005 Wednesday 9:35pmToday was a pretty boring day... I went to the infirmary to see what these lumps were. He didn't know but he put me on some sort of medication. The DR who sees us there on this unit he's gay and he touches on us as much as he can without seeming improper. The only lump he looked at was the one in my groin area. I am waiting to hear back from my penpals. I wrote two of them from Cornell University who were doing it for class. I hope they write back... I feel it would be wrong to be used like that then dropped like a hot potato. If I don't hear from them by February I will send a letter to the college with a few choice words. January 10th 2005 5amBoy I kinda got lost for a little while. I had a book call Emperor "The Gates of Rome". This is a historical fiction about Julius Caesar. It was like 8 or 9 hundred pages and I was so into this book I haven't done any writing. This is a really good book. I hope I will be able to read the other ones in the set... I had a visit Saturday which is the 8th of January and it was a really pleasant visit, though my aunt acted as if she might catch me in a lie at any minute. It's hard to fathom what is going through her mind. The officers seem to be getting a little courage from somewhere. I guess I will have to break them of it before it goes too far... January 13th 2005 8amIt's not easy to keep a schedule for my journal. I get to writing another poem or a pen pal and I foget all about my journal, or I just don't have anything worth saying... Life in administrative segregation is not very exciting... Everything is the same day in and day out. January 14th 2005 9:30amSitting here thinking about the choices I can make give me a splitting headache. I really miss my family, even when they act all messed up. I guess I'd rather have them with their faults and defects than not have them al all. I think I will enjoy having them close because I know one day they will go away or I will. I received my newsletter from Prisoner Express. I find it really exciting to see stuff I wrote being printed for other to read. I wish one day I can even publish my poems. January 18th 2005 9:00amThe officers here lie to us all the time, until stuff gets out of hand... Instead of taking care of the problems as they come, they lie and say they are gonna do this or that and knowing that they won't. And they wonder why things have to be dealt with the hard way... I am looking forward to my visit coming in the first weekend of February. It surprises me how much seeing my family has made me feel good... I hope it continues. I find that when I have something to look forward to no matter how small makes my time just a little bit better. January 22, 2005 11:20amI have begun sending my poetry to different places in hopes of getting it published one day... Its hard sending my stuff off knowing it may be rejected... Rejection is hard to accept from anyone! My days sometimes seem so short. Doing the same thing over and over day after day really starts to suck after a while... Well my pen pals from Prisoner Express have not wrote again. I'm very disappointed in them... January 26th 2005I received a letter from my pen pal in New York today!! I was really happy she decided to continue writing to me, but disappointed she still doesn't trust me with her real name. I really hope one day she comes to trust me... I've mailed off some more poems to some literary magazines but I'm not to optimistic about hearing back from them... I find that many people do not like to hear what a prisoner has to say. |