🔵 By Thomas Riffenburg. Photo by lauragrafie.
I find myself sitting in my cell, twiddling my thumbs. Solitary is dull. People lose their minds back here, but I don’t think the administration really cares about that. The more people that act out, the more need for federal money to deal with those “mentally ill” inmates. They say it’s a mental health crisis. On paper they act like they care, but they don’t. I don’t know where all the money goes, but inmates never see anything but something else being taken away. I know there’s so many prison programs out in the world, from periodicals and pamphlets, to free book programs. There are spiritual resources, writing resources, mental health resources, educational resources, entertainment resources, even friends and family who would love to purchase some books or puzzles for us; but we cannot receive anything while in solitary. So I twiddle my thumbs.
I can’t understand why trying to better myself is against the rules, I can’t understand why longing to keep the wheels of my mind active while in solitary is against the rules, I can’t understand why during this time of solitary I can’t receive anything to try to help me along on a spiritual path. It doesn’t cost the administration a thing, all the have to do is deliver the mail, which they already do. It’s a sad reality I see. Everyone who is employed or in the spotlight of prison can say whatever they choose about how much they try to better us as people, but no one ever asks us. No one ever comes down to solitary to actually see us. People view us only on paper, contemplate and justify the rules, only on paper. No one ever sees the man who is so emotionally distraught at being in complete isolation until he kills himself. Then they say something along the lines of how troubled a person he was, bring up all his past faults and say “see”. No one ever noticed his deep desire to become something better than he was; no one ever noticed his tears of rage at being unheard of treated like a number and not a person. No one ever notices the people who try, it’s only those who finally succumb to madness or grief that are ever seen, then only as problems.
I wonder why I write these words, wonder if they will even matter. I can tell you all about my happiness, but I can’t show you my smile; I can tell you about my love, but you can never see me give out a hug, I can tell you about funny moments in life, but the sound of my laughter has been silenced from anyone ever hearing it; I can tell you of sorrow and pain, but who will ever see my tears…
All anyone can know of us, comes from paper. Maybe that’s why we all try to write who we are. Most of us know that our words will just end up in trashcans somewhere but trying is all we have, so we do it. I know that there are thousands of us who do this, create a living us with words, and with so many “living people papers”, one of us is bound to be seen, hopefully. It would be nice to be remembered.
I used to never care for anyone but myself, but now my neighbors sadness has become my sadness, his happiness, my happiness. A complete stranger has become like a brother to me. I know him more being separated by brick walls and steel bars, than anyone in the administration who reads about him knows. I don’t even know what my brother looks like. He’s drawing a portrait of himself, and he’s planning on smuggling it to me. He tells me he has this funny shaped birthmark above his eyebrow, we laugh about it together. I hope I get to see him one day, and as long as our smuggling works out, I will. I’m not one who can draw well, so I put a circle with a smile and a big nose, then scribbled on a mustache. I hope my brother likes my portrait.
I’m not sure why things are the way they are in here, though I suspect it’s all about money, most things are. I know the outside world probably reads so much terrible stuff about us in here, I can imagine, but I hope you can realize that all that you are, is what we are. People, living breathing people. I know only our words come out to the world, but so many of us send our hearts out as well. They’re just really hard to see. The administration doesn’t want that part of us to get connected to anyone. They like us just the way we are, isolated and forgotten, but I suspect you’ll receive constant updates about our “acting out”. Man, I’d love to just once be able to hug my mother, too bad that’s not allowed either.