I never knew my father.  I have long since come to terms with that, but as a young child, it crushed me.  I questioned why my dad would not want to be ‘my’ dad and eventually concluded he just didn’t love me.  Years later, when my own daughter was born, I held her in the delivery room and made a promise to both of us that I would never fail her the way my father failed me – never cause her to question my love.  I broke that promise spectacularly when she was only four years old.  I went to jail and, later, prison with a life sentence.

My broken promise put my daughter in a highly vulnerable demographic.  One in forty children in this country is affected by parental incarceration, the math works out to 2.6 million kids with at least one parent in a cage.  This separation afflicts children with emotional and behavioral problems, low grades in school, high dropout rates, and a higher risk of incarceration.  These effects scream the importance of incarcerated parents staying connected to their kids and their lives as much as possible.  But how do you do that from here?

I discovered my answer while wasting away in county jail for two years.  I spent most of the time sifting through the wreckage of my former life and weighing the damage my actions caused.  One of the most tormenting pieces of debris was the lost connection to my daughter.  In desperation, I did the only thing available – I wrote letters to her, pouring my heart out to the little girl left behind.  There were tears as I expressed sorrow for not being the father I had promised and knowing she would suffer for my mistakes; there were smiles (even laughs) as I shared some of our good memories – endless Disney movies, ad-lib bedtime stories, and epic hide-and-seek games in our home, where the actual challenge was not finding the uncontrollable giggler hiding in front of the sofa.  

As the letters piled up, a family member reached out offering to receive them and, when my daughter was older, give them to her if she ever asked about me.  With great difficulty, I managed to stifle my excitement.  I did, however, allow a glimmer of hope in my heart that we might one day reunite.

There are prison programs that assist incarcerated fathers with connecting to their kids – Fatherhood Accountability, One Day With God, etc.  These are commendable programs worth taking advantage of, but they are mere drops in the bucket.  It takes so much more to develop strong, loving relationships with our children.  I found that writing letters helped me.  Through letters our children get to know who we are.  Through writing letters, we also get to process the separation as well.  Some may hesitate for fear of sounding foolish, and I struggled with this at times.  But I fought through with the belief that any emotion infused in a letter will be felt when it is read.  What I wrote on those pages, the good and the bad, eventually made me real to my daughter, all of my tears and smiles made an impact.

I received my daughter’s first letter seventeen years into my sentence.  The very first line – the first thing she wanted to say to me after so much time – “Hey, dad, I just finished your letters and would like for us to get to know each other… again.”

what is prison really like?
she asks…so I muse…

it is stale breath
in chow lines
crammed behind vikings who
haven’t showered in months

or…racial divides
like lawmakers
fistfights over what to watch
street outlaws vs love & hip hop
MAGA vs #BLM
acronyms of the violence
we kill to view
acronyms of the society
we thought we once knew

in this zoo
hallways twist in a maze
leading past a monkey’s cage
fronted by plexiglas that displays
thieves = chimps
rapists = orangutans
killers = gorillas 
broken men who fall here
only to be broken again 

in a pool of blood
from a shank’s puncture wound 
seeping out like the hope
left in courtrooms

yet…it can be an awakening
of the spirit and soul 
to encounter dickinson, hughes,
angelou, emerson, and bukowski
then to mimic them in my own 
gravely voice 
rubbed hoarse by decades of
silent activism
in my cell 
with a pen as a shovel 
digging me out of 
this hell 

while staring at her face
across the visitation table 
i repeat her question
but more as a question
to myself 

i muse…before asking… 
what is prison really like?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Phillip Smith is an accomplished writer, across many genres. He is a student, an advocate, author of NC HB 697, editor of The Nash News, and we love to see him here. His accomplishments are extensive, and he has no intention of slowing down. I am grateful to be able to share his work.

Mr. Smith can be contacted at:
Phillip Vance Smith, II #0643656
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

I write to escape,
To hide deep within
Where I can be alone
With my hidden thoughts
And secret hopes. 
That secret place
Is mine alone,
I can hide my torment,
Anguish and despair,
Where it need not be on display
For the world to see.
I write to bury my pain,
To cast it aside with pen and paper.
With the stroke of a pen,
I create my own illusion
Of joy and happiness. 
But the illusion is a lie,
And like all lies,
It cannot stand up to the light of day.
I write the words my mouth cannot speak,
The words that lay trapped
In the deepest depths of this well
That is my heart. 
I cannot give voice to those words,
For then they would become
A part of my reality
And no longer could I seek sanctuary
In the illusion,
In the lie that cannot stand up to the light of day.
I write to stay alive inside,
To keep from dying
A little more with each passing day,
To keep love at bay as she nips at my heart.  
Because for me, to love is to die,
Not physically, but inside,
A little more each day. 
So, write I must
As love kicks and pounds
At the door of my heart.
That is why I write…

ABOUT THE WRITER. This is the first submission I’ve received from Mr. Enis, but I’m looking forward to reading more of his work. His piece is a direct reflection of why WITS exists. He beautifully expressed what we are all about and what so many of the writers here have in common. Toni Enis has been incarcerated for over thirty-three years, and maintains his innocence. He can be contacted at:

Tony Enis #N82931
P.O. Box 1000
Menard, IL 02259

I would be lying if I didn’t say part of me fears this may be the end of the world as we know it.  We are all in the grip of COVID-19.

I’m currently housed at Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, Michigan, and at the time of this writing, there are no positive cases at this facility.  However, there have been cases in almost every prison around this area.  It’s inevitable for the virus to make its way here.   Not only that, on April 7, 2020, the MDOC decided to bring fifty prisoners to this facility who had tested positive for COVID-19 and were supposedly recovering.  While the prisoners are in an isolated part of the prison and administrators claim they no longer have the coronavirus, this decision only adds to the anxiety and uncertainty – adds to the fear that comes with this pandemic.

I fear for my life here.   I fear our overseers contracting the disease and spreading it to those of us on the inside.  Officers are angry the administration brought in once infected prisoners, and I’ve heard that some have said if they were to contract the virus, they were going to give it to us.  

I fear losing a loved one.                             

I fear my underlying illness preventing me from fighting off the virus if I were to contract it.

I fear the impact the coronavirus is having on Black and Brown communities.  

My worst fear, though, has always been dying in prison, and now that this disease is in such close proximity to me, I feel I am staring at death.   Why would the MDOC bring prisoners who were infected to one of the only prisons that doesn’t have any cases?  Since the COVID-19 outbreak there hasn’t been one single case reported in Lenawee County, which is where this facility is located.   Yet – as I write these words, I was just informed two prisoners in Level 1 of this prison were put in segregation with temperatures of 104° and  men in their cubes have fevers.  The inevitable is happening.  COVID-19 is closing in on me.  I hope my fear of dying in prison doesn’t start closing in on me next.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Quentin Jones is the founder of MYLIFEMATTERSTOO, and is serving Life Without The Possibility Of Parole in Michigan. After two decades in prison, he strives daily to be productive and make a positive impact. “I will be happy if I can simply inspire someone to become a better person. As a society, we need to challenge ourselves to become better people. We need a lot more LOVE and a lot less HATE.”

Quentin can be contacted at:
Quentin Jones #302373
Gus Harrison Correctional Facility
2727 East Beecher Street
Adrian, MI 49221-3506

MYLIFEMATTERSTOO on Facebook.

All Posts By Quentin Jones.

When the officer woke me at 4:00 a.m. to get ready for the one hour ride to Duane L. Waters Health Center, I had to mentally prepare myself for what I knew I would see.  I’ve been there before, and I knew death would be there, up close and personal.  It’s not unusual to see a dying prisoner being moved around the facility. 

Duane L. Waters Health Center is the MDOC’s prison hospital, located in Jackson, Michigan.  Every prisoner dreads going there – partly because of the ‘healthcare’ and partly because the building itself reeks of death.  It’s also where they house the hospice prisoners.  I had to go today for a hearing test for the loss of hearing in my left ear.  I’ve been dealing with it for almost a year, and today was my day to go to DLW. 

As I entered the building in shackles, the foul smell of human suffering and deterioration immediately filled my nostrils and the torment of death by incarceration filled my body.  After being unshackled by the transporting officer, I made my way to the crowded waiting area, where I saw a man I have been serving time with for years walk by.  The sight of him shook me to my core.  All that was left was a shell.  The man I knew had deteriorated, and I could see death practically knocking on his door.  I hadn’t prepared myself to see someone I knew in such bad shape.

The wait can be lengthy at DLW, but the sight of the old head in such bad shape made the couple hours feel like forever.  He’s me.  I’m serving life without the possibility of parole.  I’m sentenced  to die by incarceration.  I’m 39, and to most, that’s young.  But I’m twenty-one years in on a sentence of forever, and I can’t help but notice my health deteriorating.  I think every prisoner’s worst fear is dying in prison, but for those of us serving LWOP in Michigan – we will probably die at DLW. 

While I was waiting, thinking about what I’d just seen, another guy I knew entered the waiting area.  He works in the hospice unit.  He told me he recently sat with one of the old heads I had a lot of love for – as he died.    

So, here I am in the wee hours, reflecting on a day in which I saw my reality – what the final days of death by incarceration look like.  Death is promised to everyone, and for those of us whose worst fears come true and we die in this place, it will be alone in a dark prison hospital like the one I saw today.  Over the last six months six men I have been doing time with died after serving decades in prison.

Today’s trip replays and thoughts run rampant in my mind, preventing sleep as I stare at the concrete walls of my cage.  My pain is real –  and it gets realer by the second…
by the minute…
by the hour…
by the day…
by the week…
by the month…
by the year…

by the decade.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Quentin Jones is the founder of MYLIFEMATTERSTOO, and is serving Life Without The Possibility Of Parole in Michigan. After two decades in prison, he strives daily to be productive and make a positive impact. “I will be happy if I can simply inspire someone to become a better person. As a society, we need to challenge ourselves to become better people. We need a lot more LOVE and a lot less HATE.”

Quentin can be contacted at:
Quentin Jones #302373
Gus Harrison Correctional Facility
2727 East Beecher Street
Adrian, MI 49221-3506

MYLIFEMATTERSTOO on Facebook.

All Posts By Quentin Jones.

I don’t know this Mr. Defeat
Of whom you speak.
Chances are me and dude,
We will never meet.
My enemies lie and cheat
To compete with my truth.
You are certainly right,
You don’t know me,
And I don’t know you.
But fact are facts
And real is real.
Yeah, I sold drugs,
But I never robbed or killed.
You say you feel my pain,
How could you
When it’s even too extreme
For me to explain
Without feeling strange.
I mean…
Imagine being buried alive
Not inside oak or pine.
This is concrete and iron,
Sometimes the sun doesn’t shine –
Hold on!
Wait!
Look at me when I am talking to you!
I could easily be YOU!


ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Rogers LaCaze once lived on Death Row, but was resentenced to life this past week for a crime committed in 1995. He maintains his innocence. Mr. LaCaze can be contacted at:
Rogers LaCaze, Sr. #356705
CBB L/L L.S.P.
Angola, La. 70712

Having served over 38 years, guilty or innocent, I wake each morning to the profound reality of doing life in prison.  This is not what I or any man was created for.  But here I am in a box, caged like an animal, and as the tours come through, I’m often looked upon as such.

Yes, a man, a human no less, but looked at and treated as other than, the wretch of the earth.

I have a friend who wrote a book titled, ‘A Costly American Hatred’. His name is Joseph Dole. In the foreword he states, “At one time lepers were segregated from society and exiled for life to leper colonies.” A new type of leper and leper colony has taken their place in America. People who commit crimes are the new leper.  The new leper colonies are prisons, sprung up across our nation like Starbucks.

Doing life is not easy, and one has to adjust and continue to adjust as the hours, days, months and years go by.  And as life – your life, my life – plays out, one has to remain hopeful. I first entered prison without a care.  I still had a woman and family. In a span of a few years, they were gone. The losses unimaginable.  I spoke to my mother on the phone weekly and got an occasional visit, but life as I knew it changed the moment the judge found me guilty.

When you enter the belly of the beast, trust me, your life will change too. That’s a fact.  I had no heart when I first arrived. I was as cold as the steel that confined me. I often applauded the misfortune of others that played out on the news and before my eyes.  Sometimes, I played a part in the demise. I was a young son with an estranged woman, who became hooked on drugs.  I had a mother trying to be the conduit of help and a good grandmother while also a parent to me.  I was doing time, gang-banging, getting high and doing much of what I had been doing on the street. I was numb to the time I had to do. I had yet to realize I was doing the best I could to escape reality.

Each year time gets harder as the prison industry dries up. The prisoncrats took back their prisons and commerce has dried up as well.  As an artist, the end of arts and craft shows and being allowed to sell our art to officers and visitors was a game changer.  I went from earning a few hundred dollars each month to depending on a state stipend of $10.00.  Trust me, that doesn’t go a long way in prison these days.

Now I sit here with no family, my mother gone, and a brother who hasn’t spoken to me or my son in over twenty years.  There is no other family.  I had a woman for over twenty of the thirty plus years.  She was a rock in and out of my life. She would help me weather many a storm, but at seventy plus years of age and chronic everything, time has crippled her in many, many ways.  Years have gone by, and I haven’t heard a word from her. Time waits for no one.

I too have aged.  I’m blessed to have my son here with me in prison, but it’s certainly not where I want him to be. As an elder, our relationship affords me a bit of comfort many my age do not have here. Life has taken a toll on my body, but not my spirit. I hold on to hope and dream of being free! But I also face the awesome reality that I may die in here. That’s real and something I think about often.  I ask myself, what will my legacy be?

Up until the point when I changed my life, I was en route to further failure and the banner of having been born and died and absolutely nothing else. It’s my hope, my fervent prayer, that my legacy will be that of a man who helped shape the futures of young men who came through this penal institution, especially those now in the free world.  I hope that I have helped them change their lives for the better, and that I have given some hope, some insight into making better decisions.

As for my son, I am honored to have shown him the other man, not the gang-banging, ice-cold, uncaring man who caused harm and damage to men, women and community, but a visible man of Yah (God).  A man who shows and teaches the lessons of love, respect and compassion.  A man who shows how important it is to extend our hands to our elders.  A man who has always extended his hand to the many sons I’ve adopted during my journey in prison.

I want my legacy to be that I was a man of Yah, who with each new breath of life represented the banner of my holy name – Ananyah – which means, he has covered or the covering of Yah (God). I would like my legacy to be that my writings I once did for the youth on life from lock down, provided a teachable moment, a vision, and led readers to see, know and hear the truth of my words.

I want you to think of your favorite part of the day, when everything else stops. Taking your children to the park, the warm embrace of a loved one, waking to the one you love, or just a simple cone of ice cream. Your favorite home-cooked meal or a nice refreshing shower.  Now, imagine that moment gone forever – that’s doing life in prison, my friend.

A sentence of life without the possibility of parole, is a death sentence, but worse.  It’s a long, slow, dissipating death without any of the legal or administrative safeguards rightly awarded to those condemned to the traditional form of execution. Life in prison is indeed the other death penalty. It exposes our society’s concealed belief that redemption and personal transformation are not possible, thus no one is vested in us except for the monetary value our incarceration provides.

You have the ability to chart a new course has always been my belief and message. I’ve expressed concern to the youth and parents of youth in hope they avoid sitting in one of the many cells available in the US Penal System – like I am.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Kenneth Key is an accomplished artist and writer and can be contacted at:
Kenneth Key #A70562
P.O. Box 112
Joliet, Illinois 60434-0112

Another sleepless night. 

My lower back feels the pain of twenty years of incarceration and sleeping on a thin piece of plastic the MDOC calls a mattress.  The steel frame holds my 208 pound frame, and the darkness of my cement cage conceals the vulnerabilities I keep hidden from predators.  Tears form in my eyes, but not even in the presence of myself can I cry.   Not because it’s not manly – but because I’m numb to the pain.

I find myself replaying an earlier conversation.  I was talking to a guy named Santana.  I’ve known him for twelve years now.   I was eight and a half years deep into my LWOP sentence when he first came.  I took a liking to Santana from the start, so I did the same thing the old heads did with me when I came.  I shared with him some knowledge I felt would help him on his journey. That was twelve years ago, and now Santana is knee deep into his own LWOP sentence.

Today he literally shook my foundation when he told me that he was ready for death. My first reaction was one of concern, so I asked, “You’re not thinking about taking yourself out of the game?”

He replied, “Naw, big homie.  I can’t do that, but I would rather die than live out my days like this.”

I understood where he was coming from.  I’ve often had that same thought over the course of my twenty years. I think everybody that is sentenced to death by incarceration has had that thought at one point. There are many nights one goes to sleep hoping not to wake up, only to waken to the reality of captivity.  It wears on a person’s mind, body, and soul to wake up day after day in this dehumanizing environment.

It hurts to know I’ve served twenty years, four months, and fifteen days, but I’m no closer to physical freedom than I was twenty years, four months and fifteen days ago when I entered this system. Yes, times are changing, and I can see some light now, but it’s like looking up in the sky at night – I can see the stars, but they are so far away.  I can see physical freedom, but it is so far away. Yet I keep pushing forward.  I keep striving to be a better man.  What other option do I have? I can’t fold. I can’t let them break me. I can’t give up. I have to be strong. I have to keep my head up. I have to be productive. I have to be positive because if I don’t, I will lose hope and the pain of LWOP will kill me.  I guess then and only then will they consider justice to be served.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Quentin Jones works with incarcerated writers.  He strives to inspire minds and bring change to a flawed system – one designed to eat away at the heart and soul of society. “I will be happy if I can simply inspire someone to become a better person. As a society, we need to challenge ourselves to become better people. We need a lot more LOVE and a lot less HATE.”

Quentin can be contacted at:
Quentin Jones #302373
Gus Harrison Correctional Facility
2727 East Beecher Street
Adrian, MI 49221-3506

MYLIFEMATTERSTOO on Facebook.

All Posts By Quentin Jones.