Everybody flick, flicking a cigarette...
Hold that thought...I'm on some new shit. I got one hand in my pocket and the others waving good bye. Once I hit your side of the fence that finger will be flipping a bird.
When I was a little boy they had this coin-donation-contraption at the front of Wal-Mart. You dropped your coin in a slot and the coin dropped into this funnel tube. It rolled a big wide circle at the top and as it fell lower, the narrow cone made it spin faster. It went faster and faster until it dropped into the small hole at the bottom.
I'm that fucking penny right now. The slow-role of this thing is over and it's at the trail's end. I just pictured a kid drinking his milk-shake. It's all gone, but he's steady sucking the straw in that one corner to get the last tiny bit. All you hear is that annoying sucking sound. That gurgling sound that signals the shits empty little homie.
Unlike that milk-shake, prison isn't good till-the-last drop. I am certainly not around here trying to suck up the last drop. And that just came off really gay.
I want a filet-mignon, cooked medium with a side salad. I'll be drinking a Michelob light and shooting tequila. Take the shot, nurse the beer. Slow ride it till the piano break. I won't be drinking socially. I'll be drinking to fine-tune a monumental buzz that will walk me to the edge.
I'm having one for all the cool ass men that had to stay behind. The brothers I leave behind this fence. I've been watching them leave around me...One by one... And I knew that one day, that would be me taking this walk for the last time. I'll have made it. I did my bid. Manned up, screwed down and took a direct hit. 10 years lived inside a fence.
Nope, I'm gonna dance with the devil. Get his shit off my chest. If I bring elements of this life back to society, I will fail. I can't afford to do that, failure is not an option..
In order for me to be the man I want to be I have to walk from this just like I quit smoking 5 years ago. Not one puff, not one drag-never hit one again. If I allow this place to come home with me than I let them win.
Clean break. Walk away. It's over. Now I'm the dude who gives the next guy hope. Man UP. Handle your business and get your ass home to your family.
Sunday, May 28, 2017
Monday, May 22, 2017
Confinement
Its been awhile since I took a time-out. Stepped away from regular every day prison-life and was placed in confinement. Over my time in D.O.C., nearly 9 years now, I have visited confinement at every prison I have done time at. Unless you walk a squeaky-clean line and have luck on your side, you will sooner or later visit prisons Bed N Breakfast.
Confinement can work at you different ways. When you come to the box, you lose your previous life. You won't get your same bunk back. Chances are you won't even be in the same dorm. Sometimes they steal your shit before the cops can pack it up to store. You will be reassigned a new job once released, so if you really had it going on for yourself, the box can screw that up. Not to mention your loved ones call up here to find out why you're not calling home anymore and are told what type of buffoonery your up to. These things will gnaw at you when you come into confinement. Not to mention they can take your gain time and cause you to do longer in prison.
I'm not a fool. Well, not full-time. I calculate the worst-case-scenario before I ever walk out on thin ice. So, this trip to confinement was a perfect example of worst case scenario. I have a year and a half to do here yet and need to carry my own weight, I picked up the tattoo machine once again. It has been my hustle in the chain gang for nearly six years now. I'm one of the best.
I should have hired the best look-out I could find. Instead I relied on someone who decided to take a break at the same time the officer decided to do a security check. I'm absorbed in my artwork when I hear someone saying, "O-shit, she's right there!!" By the level of panic I heard in the voice, I knew she was like....Right There! And she was.
Needless to say she wasn't feeling a wide open tattoo parlor in her dormitory that day. And, sometimes blue eyes and dimples can't buy your freedom. Trust me, I tried. But when they tell you to "Turn around, cuff-up", you can save your breath. You're taking a little vacation.
Tattooing, body piercing, branding and modifications constitutes 15 days confinement. When I heard the panic in the voice, I knew it was close so I slid the equipment as far away as possible and willed it to disappear. When it didn't, it at least changed it to a "contraband" D.R. since I wasn't caught in the act.
I knew what I was up against. This will not change the day I leave. Nor am I upset that I misplaced my bunk and dorm. I'm catching up on some sleep and some letter writing. To appease the gods of fate, I needed to go on and get this over with. Consider my dues paid. No matter where the debt is paid, payment is still collected.
2018 Baby!!!
Confinement can work at you different ways. When you come to the box, you lose your previous life. You won't get your same bunk back. Chances are you won't even be in the same dorm. Sometimes they steal your shit before the cops can pack it up to store. You will be reassigned a new job once released, so if you really had it going on for yourself, the box can screw that up. Not to mention your loved ones call up here to find out why you're not calling home anymore and are told what type of buffoonery your up to. These things will gnaw at you when you come into confinement. Not to mention they can take your gain time and cause you to do longer in prison.
I'm not a fool. Well, not full-time. I calculate the worst-case-scenario before I ever walk out on thin ice. So, this trip to confinement was a perfect example of worst case scenario. I have a year and a half to do here yet and need to carry my own weight, I picked up the tattoo machine once again. It has been my hustle in the chain gang for nearly six years now. I'm one of the best.
I should have hired the best look-out I could find. Instead I relied on someone who decided to take a break at the same time the officer decided to do a security check. I'm absorbed in my artwork when I hear someone saying, "O-shit, she's right there!!" By the level of panic I heard in the voice, I knew she was like....Right There! And she was.
Needless to say she wasn't feeling a wide open tattoo parlor in her dormitory that day. And, sometimes blue eyes and dimples can't buy your freedom. Trust me, I tried. But when they tell you to "Turn around, cuff-up", you can save your breath. You're taking a little vacation.
Tattooing, body piercing, branding and modifications constitutes 15 days confinement. When I heard the panic in the voice, I knew it was close so I slid the equipment as far away as possible and willed it to disappear. When it didn't, it at least changed it to a "contraband" D.R. since I wasn't caught in the act.
I knew what I was up against. This will not change the day I leave. Nor am I upset that I misplaced my bunk and dorm. I'm catching up on some sleep and some letter writing. To appease the gods of fate, I needed to go on and get this over with. Consider my dues paid. No matter where the debt is paid, payment is still collected.
2018 Baby!!!
Saturday, May 6, 2017
WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU ABOUT?
Life's a winding road and as I near 40 years old I'm asking myself that very thing (title of this piece). Are you an employee, a single mom struggling to get by? What's your "off-the-top" answer? A name? You have one. But are you a part of something? A team, a greater wheel? And what are you about? What would others say about you if asked that question? Do you run and hide? Bow down, give up and shrink away? Or do you stand tall and give 'em hell?
And what's your legacy? What is the memory you will leave behind? When you're young you don't stop to consider this. But I'm getting older, it's how the cards fall. When I slow down one day, when the edges begin to fade, the end draws near, will the light I leave behind be as bright as the one I walk into.....And that's what I'm asking myself.
My family has watched me get clean and free from drugs. My mother has watched me grow into a man. My daughter's mother has watched me become a dad who loves my child. I get to watch my sister's son grow into a man. I get to walk up on him and hear him tell his friends, "this is my Uncle Mike, I was named after him." And my other sister's daughter can introduce me to her friends and tell them she wrote me letters while I was in prison. We were pen-pals.
I met my sister Grace's boys before they were born here in the visiting park of a prison. And I put my hand on her belly and we took pictures to prove it. When I get home I'm going to make grilled cheese sandwiches for them and then we're going to play catch in the backyard. And my baby sister is going to look out her back window and smile. She's going to see her big brother, who walked to the ends of hell and back, love on her boys.
I realize now this is what life is for. Not a million bucks in the bank, but rather a million memories with the people we love. I get to pile up my sister's daughters, my brother's little girl and me and my daughter get to take them out for ice-cream. All them little faces smeared with ice-cream. I want to smear some on my face and take a picture with them all.
It's crazy the stuff you begin to think about when you know your half-way to the end. I may even be closer than that. All the more reason to make every second count.
Here I am in the place where people fall between the cracks. But I'm part of a bigger picture. My family won't allow that to happen. They reach right in here and grab me. Their children reach out to me in here. Everyone in my family plays a role.
A long time ago I wasn't ready to be a Dad. Another man stepped up to the plate and he became Dad to my daughter. He loved my daughter as his own. Clayton was killed in a tragic car accident and left behind his wife and the little girl she was carrying, along with my daughter. He had raised my little girl and was taken before he even met and held his own little girl.
Thoughts of this man have inspired me to never let down our daughter, his wife or his daughter. It's a big story but its my story. During the most impressionable years of my daughters life, he loved her and showed her what a great Dad should be like. He left too soon, yet what he left behind lives on.
When my time comes I want to leave behind memories of myself that touch the people I loved forever.
And so I ask myself what I'm doing. I want to dig up worms with these boys and then take them fishing. One day I would like to take my daughter and her little sister out to dinner. I would like to tell them both stories I remember of their Dad. I was merely a biological Dad at the time...He was a father. I will always see this man as Dad to my daughter. I give him that respect and when I talk to my daughter I tell her about her other Dad also and I call him that to her. I hope to pass that on to the daughter of his he never met. He gave me a priceless gift, perhaps I can show back that kindness.
That's who I want to be. These are the things I want to be about. I may be covered in tattoos, but they don't define me. On first impression you may jump to conclusions but you would do good to look more closely. While you're looking closely, I challenge you to take a look at yourself and see what you're about.
And what's your legacy? What is the memory you will leave behind? When you're young you don't stop to consider this. But I'm getting older, it's how the cards fall. When I slow down one day, when the edges begin to fade, the end draws near, will the light I leave behind be as bright as the one I walk into.....And that's what I'm asking myself.
My family has watched me get clean and free from drugs. My mother has watched me grow into a man. My daughter's mother has watched me become a dad who loves my child. I get to watch my sister's son grow into a man. I get to walk up on him and hear him tell his friends, "this is my Uncle Mike, I was named after him." And my other sister's daughter can introduce me to her friends and tell them she wrote me letters while I was in prison. We were pen-pals.
I met my sister Grace's boys before they were born here in the visiting park of a prison. And I put my hand on her belly and we took pictures to prove it. When I get home I'm going to make grilled cheese sandwiches for them and then we're going to play catch in the backyard. And my baby sister is going to look out her back window and smile. She's going to see her big brother, who walked to the ends of hell and back, love on her boys.
I realize now this is what life is for. Not a million bucks in the bank, but rather a million memories with the people we love. I get to pile up my sister's daughters, my brother's little girl and me and my daughter get to take them out for ice-cream. All them little faces smeared with ice-cream. I want to smear some on my face and take a picture with them all.
It's crazy the stuff you begin to think about when you know your half-way to the end. I may even be closer than that. All the more reason to make every second count.
Here I am in the place where people fall between the cracks. But I'm part of a bigger picture. My family won't allow that to happen. They reach right in here and grab me. Their children reach out to me in here. Everyone in my family plays a role.
A long time ago I wasn't ready to be a Dad. Another man stepped up to the plate and he became Dad to my daughter. He loved my daughter as his own. Clayton was killed in a tragic car accident and left behind his wife and the little girl she was carrying, along with my daughter. He had raised my little girl and was taken before he even met and held his own little girl.
Thoughts of this man have inspired me to never let down our daughter, his wife or his daughter. It's a big story but its my story. During the most impressionable years of my daughters life, he loved her and showed her what a great Dad should be like. He left too soon, yet what he left behind lives on.
When my time comes I want to leave behind memories of myself that touch the people I loved forever.
And so I ask myself what I'm doing. I want to dig up worms with these boys and then take them fishing. One day I would like to take my daughter and her little sister out to dinner. I would like to tell them both stories I remember of their Dad. I was merely a biological Dad at the time...He was a father. I will always see this man as Dad to my daughter. I give him that respect and when I talk to my daughter I tell her about her other Dad also and I call him that to her. I hope to pass that on to the daughter of his he never met. He gave me a priceless gift, perhaps I can show back that kindness.
That's who I want to be. These are the things I want to be about. I may be covered in tattoos, but they don't define me. On first impression you may jump to conclusions but you would do good to look more closely. While you're looking closely, I challenge you to take a look at yourself and see what you're about.
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