October 1998
My fear is justified. Big Brother is watching—it's not just my paranoia. They have stolen my writings … before—suicide letters to nobody—and then had the balls to sit there and read from them out of my file. I haven’t bothered to ask for them back because they are now the property of the state. I wonder: is each page I write just another page added to that file? I am tempted not to write at all, out of self-preservation, or fear, really. But no! I must write! …
I’m tired of holding it all in. I’m tired of being silent about the things that matter.
… I've got this piece of paper in a three-ring binder, which I … purchased from the commissary for $3.03 plus tax. I thought that it might be slightly awkward or uncomfortable writing like this, and it is, but I think I can live with it. …. Maybe if I don't write all the way across the page, but only about 2/3 of the way … it won't be so awkward. In a thousand years it probably won't matter anyhow so I'll just do what comes naturally and keep on writing …
June 2004
It has been five years and eight months since I made that journal entry. I am still in prison. I have not left prison. I have grown and changed in many ways, have had notable successes and failures, but I am still rotting here in prison. |
Listen to audio of the reading
