My neighbors and I have one very large thing in common.  In the name of security, prison officials have stripped us of every ounce of our dignity.  In spite of that bond – we all know better than to get too close to one another.  Each one of is here to be executed.   We may not have execution dates – yet – but the possibility looms large with every court ruling, every denied appeal and every date set for one of our neighbors.

To remain emotionally separated from our fellow condemned prisoners may be what we want – but it’s not always possible.  In reality it’s sometimes unavoidable while living in such close proximity, sharing our losses, talking, and being around each other, even if only in an emotional sense.  Sometimes you find yourself compatible with someone, maybe because of their attitude, or maybe it’s just the way they carry themselves.  There are also those you dislike for whatever reason.

Here on Death Row, you don’t ask a person what kind of charge they have or what they are here for.  Everyone knows that – to live here – there had to be someone who was killed and you are either charged with it or involved.  Despite that, there is an amount of curiosity, and it’s hard to accept some crimes.  It’s an internal battle to be against the death penalty regardless of the nature of the crime.  On one hand being opposed to the harshest of punishments, but on the other being judgmental of certain offenses.

It’s quite easy to be against execution when you are facing it.  For me the struggle is not to be biased when someone’s crime involved a kid. This is a challenge for me, and even though I don’t ask guys what they are here for, I still try to be in the know with who did what.

Just the other day a guy was executed – Erick – it was April 25, 2018. He was a guy I had become close to and considered a friend. When I first met him, I saw me almost 20 years ago when I first came to prison – young, wild, knew it all and just didn’t give a f*#@.  I could relate.   I was at that same point in my life many years ago when I was that age.  As the years passed I watched him grow and mature a bit, yet maintain that wildness that made him who he was.  Yes, he still had a ways to go in his growth, but I accepted him for who he was. Then I found out through a friend why he was here.  There was a five-year-old child killed in his case.

It hurt me to find this out, but I concealed the pain because I had come to like this guy and accepted him for who he was with me.   But I was confused.  It’s hard to ‘unknow’ someone once you’ve spent hours, days and years socializing with them.  It was a learning experience for me about not judging someone – a lesson about offering a person the same forgiveness that I seek from those who come into my life.

I reflected upon this for a long time, as a battle went on inside me to come to my own understanding.  It wasn’t about Erick anymore, it wasn’t about the crime.  It was about me.  Could I find it within myself to forgive and still accept the man I knew as a friend?  Would the bond I found with him and the way I embraced him as a little brother remain strong?  Yes.  I forgave him and accepted him for who he was and the person he was trying to become, the man who was trying to better himself even though it wasn’t easy.    The man who was open to learning and believing that it was possible to grow despite the nature of his incarceration.  That’s why April 25, 2018, was a difficult day.  It was the day Erick was executed by the state of Texas.

I was reading a book recently in which a man’s son was killed, and a police detective came to the home to talk with him.  The detective said he wanted to get justice for his son.  The man looked him in the eye and said, “There ain’t no justice, its only revenge, could you please leave.”   Those few words said a lot.

What truly is justice?  It’s sure not what the politicians tell us.  It’s sure not what goes on in this country. Justice is a word used to convince people the right things is being done for them, making them feel they are getting what is due them for the wrong done toward them or their family. Executing a person is not justice.  Taking the life of another human is not justice. It’s revenge in its purest form, cloaked in the robe of justice.  It’s baffling that people can actually believe justice is being served by watching a man being strapped to a table and having an IV inserted into his arm to be filled with poison until it kills him.  Justice…  This has to be the most primitive view of ‘justice’ imaginable.  How is this considered justice in any form?  And yet politicians continue to stand firm that this is the way…

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Travis Runnels, is a published author, and is currently working on his second novel.  He lives on Death Row.

Travis Runnels #999505
3872 FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

Wanna cry me a river
Tears for my peers
Executed over the years
Despite these fears
Living life in this period
Grinded in the gears
Of unfair justice
Strapped down in line
Hoping it’s not my time
To cry my river…

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Travis Runnels, is a published author, and is currently working on his second novel.  He lives on Death Row.

Travis Runnels #999505
3872 FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

It’s winter, so bundle up – take a walk with me.

At my cell door, we have to stop.  Two guards are on the other side, and I need to hand them all my clothes.   I stand in my boxers as one searches through my thermal top, thermal bottom, two pairs of socks, shorts, t-shirt, jump suit and jacket.  Once finished, the male guard hands all those items to the female guard standing next to him.

I then hand the man the last of my clothing, my boxer shorts and tennis shoes.  Once he searches those, I’m made to do the strip search drill, lifting my testicles and turning around, before I’m allowed to put my boxers and tennis shoes back on.  Turning my back to the door, I squat a bit to place my hands through the feeding slot so hand restraints can be placed on my wrists.  Once locked in place, I stand up, and the guard motions for the cell to be opened.

“Back out the cell,” the guard states.  You’re not supposed to turn around and walk out, but back out.  Now we are escorted by the two guards to the recreation yard outside.  Once through the door to the outside, the bitter cold instantly bites my flesh, sending goose bumps along my skin.  As one guard holds me, the other walks the recreation yard, searching it – and holding my clothes.

Once she returns, I step in the yard and the door is closed behind me.  I stoop once again to place my hands through the slot so the handcuffs can be removed.  My clothes are then passed to me through the slot.  I quickly begin putting them on and trying to get warm.

That was the easy part.  After my time outside is up, the guards return to get me.  Once again, I walk back to the gate door and begin to strip out in order to hand my clothes to the guard.  Layer by layer, I hand them in as they are searched, piece by piece, until I am once again naked and outside.  The last thing I hand in is my shoes, as I stand on the cold concrete, waiting.  But, before they can be returned, I first have to raise my testicles, raise my arms, and turn around.

My body is shivering by the time I get my shoes and boxers back and turn around to once again put my shaking hands through the slot to get handcuffed.  I then stand up before backing out the door and walking back into the building.

Thank you for walking with me.  If you enjoyed this, we can do it again tomorrow.  This is what every one of us does that wants to get outside our cell for two hours in the winter.

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Travis Runnels, is a published author, and is currently working on his second novel.  He lives on Death Row.

Travis Runnels #999505
3872 FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

When you first arrive off the transport van, you are interviewed by the ‘Death Row Classification Committee’, handed a rule book and told that you are expected to follow the rules and policies.  Just a few days before, you were condemned to die by lethal injection because they believe you can’t be rehabilitated and are incapable of following any rules.

You spend the next twenty years being a model prisoner.  It won’t help you on appeal.  They don’t want to know if you could have been rehabilitated.  They don’t want to know the person you’ve become is not the man they labeled as ‘incapable of following rules or functioning in society’.

If you were to violate every rule, they would want to know.  I ask myself over and over – Is it possible to disagree with my confinement, yet accept the rules placed on me by it?  What does it mean to be in agreement with your incarceration?

Regardless of how much I ponder this, I know it’s not about what they say or do with me but what I see in myself, the dignity I live with, and the behavior I expect and look for from myself.  What kind of growth can I reflect upon myself, what is it I believe I am capable of living like?  Regardless of what the courts or prison officials tell me, I have to maintain a certain level of respect and accountability for my behavior and actions.  It’s a reflection of who I am, and nothing beyond that matters.

The sword may have two edges, but I have no worries of either cutting me, for my actions are my armor of protection…

Travis Runnels, is a published author, and is currently working on his second novel.  He lives on Death Row.

Travis Runnels #999505
3872 FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

Prison lines, prison rhymes,
There has to be better times.

Every day a grind, so hard to shine
In a 9×12 all my time.

A king with no crown,
That has a permanent frown.

Surrounded by music,
Without any sound.

The void filled with brown,
Same color as the ground.

Nothing around, hidden above ground,
Left so alone, within cells made of stone.

Travis Runnels, is a published author, and is currently working on his second novel.  He lives on Death Row.  He prepared the above poem for submission on New Year’s Eve, 2017.

Travis Runnels #999505
3872 FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

My earliest memories are from when I was five or six, maybe younger.  We had a side porch and when it was raining outside, my brother, cousins, and I would sing out at the rain, “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.”  There is a smell that rain gives off, and I can’t name it, but it is the same scent I can smell when it rains where I am now.

I carry a scar with me from back then, too.  When I was little, I fell asleep on the couch, which had a shelf over it, holding a mini stereo.  The cord was hanging down, and I was such a wild sleeper that I got tangled in the cord and pulled the stereo down on my head, splitting my ear open.   I don’t remember that part, but I remember how they had to hold me down at the hospital to stitch my ear up because I was terrified of needles.

My heart feels sorrow when I think back to those memories now, knowing that most of the people from that life are gone.  I wish I could go back there, to the side porch.

Sitting on death row, you think about a lot of things.  Having a death sentence is just that – having it – until the time comes when there is a very real possibility an execution date could be given.  That’s when the term ‘the shit hits the fan’ becomes part of the equation.  That’s when the wondering starts working on you, the thinking and trying to figure out what’s what in this life you have lived so far.

Sometimes I want to know what’s to come, but other times I don’t.  There are times when I think about death so much that it becomes like a physical being, filling the space around me and pressing down on my soul.  It’s then that the nervousness threatens to consume me.  When I lay down at night I close my eyes and slow my breathing and try to feel it, the nothingness, a sleep from which I will never wake up.

But, I still have to shake it off.  Consciousness is all I’ve ever known.  Smelling the rain is what I know.

Travis Runnels has been a writer for this site for a long time.  He is scheduled to be executed on December 11, 2019.  You can sign a petition showing you are against his execution here.  You can also call the Governor of Texas at 512-463-2000 and ask for mercy and let him know you oppose the death penalty.

Travis Runnels #999505
3872 FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351

What is the view from inside my cell, what are the things I see?

I see the walls, with their peeling paint and scribbled words left behind by hands that made this cell their home before me.

There are tiny squares that make up the door frame, and I can sometimes try to make out was is happening just beyond my reach.

Standing on top of a stack of books, I can look out the window located just about at the top of the cell. Seeing off into the distance over the razor wire, there are guard towers and buildings inside the prison fencing.

I can look in the stainless steel wall around the sink and toilet combo and see my reflection gaze back at me in its shiny surface.  I look and wonder just how many images and memories are stored in that steel, pictures of faces that have looking into it, staring with their eyes full of different hopes and dreams.

This is my reality, my view of the world as I’ve come to know it over the years, enclosed by four square walls of the dullest white.

Travis Runnels, is a published author, who is currently working on his second novel.

Travis Runnels #999505
3872 FM 350
Livingston, TX 77351