There is no way you will believe what I am about to tell you, no way you will believe me when I tell you who I am – unless I prove it. 

Who else but you knows that you broke into a church last year? You were alone, walking, the snow was a couple feet deep everywhere except the roads where the plows had been through and salted.  You cut through the corner lot, saw the empty room at the back and broke in through the window.  We ate some food that was in a break room.  We also stole the money that was in the small wooden box on the stairwell.  Later we spent the money at McDonalds. 

I am sure you remember this because it’s only been a year for you.  You have not told anyone, Jeremy.  I know this – because I am you, and this is just one of the terrible things we’ve done that we have never told anyone.

I am you in 2020.  I’m writing to you from my cell at a maximum security prison in Texas.  I’ve been here over sixteen years.  When I say ‘I’, of course, I mean ‘we’.  You don’t want to end up here, so I’m writing, hoping to help you.

I know there is not a lot you can do right now. You can’t go back to living with Steve and you don’t know where mom moved to so you’re doing your best finding places to sleep where you can and eating whatever you can find. But this will be the beginning of the end for us. Every time you break into a place to sleep or to find money or food, you commit a crime.  You believe it’s a crime of necessity, and it is, but it’s still a crime.  The truth is, if you continue on this path, your – our – life will be full of failures and shame.  A hundred small failures will end in one terrible failure that will leave one man dead and two family’s destroyed. You will kill a man, Jeremy. You won’t do it on purpose, it’ll be completely unintentional, but he will be dead none the less. His two young sons will be forced to grow up without him.  His wife, his mother, his family will grieve for the rest of their lives.  Jeremy, you will lose your own family also, they will turn away from you, ashamed and angry at you.  I know you, and I know how lonely you are and how much it hurts you that you do not have a family.  If you continue on this path, man, you will never have a family.

Turn yourself in to the police.  You will not go to jail or juvy, I promise.  They will put you in a foster home, and you will have a real chance to succeed. Educate yourself, you are intelligent and you deserve an opportunity to go to school. Don’t lie, be yourself, be proud and represent it by being honest.  Cherish your friends, man, and work hard. If you do these things, you will succeed, but more importantly you’ll save countless people from pain.

And you know us, there’s no way I’d write to me in 1985 from 2020 without telling you that when a small internet company called Amazon starts up in 1995, you need to invest in it, as much as you can for as long as you can.  If you do all these things, you’ll be a much better ‘us’ in 2020 and rather than having lived a shameful life, you’ll be in position to help others that need help.  I love you, man.  Please don’t let us down.

Jeremy…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  I’m happy to say, Jeremy Robinson is the winner of our summer writing contest. He continues to write, and I hope we hear more from him here. Mr. Robinson lives in a Texas prison and can be contacted at:
Jeremy Robinson #1313930
Michael Unit
2664 FM 2054
Tennessee Colony, TX 75886