My hands fill the world with pain. They cause destruction at almost every turn. This is something I learned at a very young age. I remember being a little kid, more than three or four, and my mother had a hold of my wrists. She was telling me how bad I was. I had colored all over my closet door. My hands were bad; they ruined things. That’s what I learned.
As I grew older, this pattern continued. My hands kept breaking various objects, and I kept learning how bad I was. From dropping glasses to shooting BBs through windows, my hands destroyed most of what they touched. My handwriting was atrocious and remained that way. I lacked the ability to draw, paint, color, or create anything with my hands. My hands aren’t a mechanism for art or creation; they’re for destruction. That’s what I have learned.
As a teenager, the destruction that was left in the wake of my touch was exacerbated. I used my hands to break hearts, to withhold love, and to isolate myself from others. One day the inevitable happened, and I destroyed worlds ten times over when my hands gripped a gun and my finger pulled a trigger.
As I write this, I look at my hands. They look like hers. Every line, crack, print, swollen knuckle, I got from her. Seeing these day after day, moment after moment, fills me with pain. Still, after all these years, my hands cause pain. Endless, inescapable pain – that’s what I’ve learned.
ABOUT THE WRITER. Ashleigh is fairly new to WITS, but she certainly does not write as if she is a new writer. Her willingness to make herself vulnerable in her writing makes it even stronger. Through sharing her thoughts, her hands made something very touching here. Ashleigh can be contacted at:
Ashleigh Dye #1454863 Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women 144 Prison Lane Troy, VA 22974
routinely waking up at 4 a.m. while the prison sleeps. it’s as if the concrete softens when foamed in silence.
filling my clear plastic tumbler with scalding water, scooping in dusty coffee, then watching it bloom through the water. like the emotion i feel when my girlfriend laughs at my jokes.
when my buddy Kenny (whose dementia makes him unsteady as hell) suddenly buckled at the knee, i caught him just inches off the floor. in front of witnesses.
when I called my elderly mother, i honestly thought my sister had answered – so strong, steady, and wrinkle-free, her voice.
the perfectly shaped handprints on the floor of Cliff’s cell. he’s ratcheted out so many push-ups in the same spot, his palmsweat has blackstained the gray cement.
remembering how respect washed across our prison chaplain’s face her first day, when she borrowed my Bible to locate a verse and discovered my underlines, highlights, and notes covering every single page.
when I saw white dust all over the navy blue apron draped across my chest during my haircut, i thought it was baby powder, not gray hair.
i am still grateful for the tingly feeling in my belly that signals a great poem idea, though it also means i need to shit.
i love how loopy time is. despite having been in prison seventeen years, freedom feels fresh as yesterday. at the same time it feels like prison is all i’ve ever known.
the euphoria triggered by late-afternoon light. it has a mystical, dreamlike quality. rocks spew water and walls crumble at a word in light like this. it reminds me: anything is possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. George Wilkerson lives on Death Row. He is an accomplished poet and writer, co-author of Crimson Letters, and author of his very own, recently published Interface. I love to hear from him. He has a unique style, all his own. The above poem was compiled from excerpts from his gratitude journal. As he puts it, he “wanted to look for things I loved about everyday life.” As always – I love it when George sends his writing our way. To read more of his work, visit katbrodie.com/georgewilkerson/.
Mr. Wilkerson can be contacted at: George T. Wilkerson #0900281 Central Prison P.O. Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131
And just in case NC’s book choice was not up your alley – this is the official start of our new Arizona Book Club!
Their choice this go round….
The Family Upstairs, by Lisa Jewell!
I read this book a few months ago, so I will be passing on this first read, but my opinion – I enjoyed it! I would definitely give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars. I hope they enjoy it as much.
A side note to the Arizona Book Club – I was told I could not order from my usual book supplier for Arizona. I was also told to try Hamilton Book. Wow. This is not an advertisement, but if you want to join us on this read – the paperback costs only $3.95! I couldn’t really believe that. Again, not an advertisement, but as the sponser of these book clubs, that was very much appreciated. In addition to that good news, the Arizona readers intend to donate their books to the library when they get done reading. I think that is a win for everybody!
The NC Book Club has been in existence for about a year and a half now, and we are going strong. This week we started The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood. I was surprised when a member chose The Handmaid’s Tale by the same author last month. And, again, I’m surprised by another member choosing the follow up to that book.
That is one aspect of our NC book club that I find fascinating – each individual person’s book choice when it is their turn. I would not have suspected any of the titles we have read. And the choices are all so unique.
So, our summer reading will be wrapping up with The Testaments. If you want to read with us, feel free, and you can message me anytime with feedback or thoughts, or if you want to pass along any messages to the book club members themselves!
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.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Geoff is 21 years into a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The inspiration for his essay was the impact his letter writing had on reconnecting with his child. That came through so clearly in the essay as well as the accompanying letter. What also came across in his letter was his excitement at expanding his writing, which gets me excited. That is what WITS is all about, and I hope Geoff continues to share his writing here. Geoff can be contacted at:
Solitary confinement, isolation – the hole. Help me to understand the impact on an individual, whether yourself, someone else, or as a whole. Share an aspect of this method of punishment that I can’t understand, never having experienced it.
Woven into the purpose of prisons is the idea of rehabilitation. Prisons are not designed to be the end. They aren’t viewed as the ‘disposal’ of people. The majority of society perceives, is under the impression, prisons are places of punishment and preparation for a more productive life. How does solitary confinement fit into that design?
Every writer I have ever encountered has either had first hand experience with solitary confinement or has witnessed its use and the consequences. Help me to understand what that means.
Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate.
We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit. Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less. Poetry is considered, as long as it is inspired by the prompt.
Submissions can be handwritten.
As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.
PRIZES:
First Place: $75 Second Place: $50 Third Place: $25
DEADLINE: September 30, 2022. Decisions will be posted on or before October 31, 2022.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Walk In Those Shoes Writing Contest Entry P.O. Box 70092 Henrico, Virginia 23255
Footnote: Entries that do not follow the prompt are not passed on to the judges.
For all posts from this site as well as current criminal justice issues, you can also follow us on Facebook or Instagram.
Eighteen years ago I killed two men – Brett Harmon and Kevin McCann – during an altercation while tailgating at an NC State football game. I cannot restore their lives, but I can live each day in a way that honors Brett and Kevin, that honors the sorrow their loved ones endure each day, and that honors the burden my family has been forced to carry. By living with the values of compassion, honesty, integrity, and social responsibility, my life can serve to restore brokenness rather than cause it.
Surrounded by the gray concrete walls of a jail cell, I was lost in a pit of despair – despair from the guilt of taking two lives, from forever changing everything for at least three families, from thinking my life was nothing but a disaster. The despair left me struggling to find even a glimmer of hope. Ruinous thoughts swirled – ‘I have destroyed everything.’‘My life means nothing.’ ‘It would be better if I had never been born.’ Yet, that abyss was not my grave. The words of two mothers – mine and Brett’s – have served as my muse, lifting me out of the pit of despair and inspiring me to live with purpose.
My mother leaned forward, wanting only to wrap her arms around me, but the dingy, scratched Plexiglass made contact impossible. The day after I was arrested and charged with two counts of murder was a visitation day at the Wake County jail. I crumpled against the cubicle’s side, unable to look into her tear-teeming eyes. How could I have let her down so terribly when she had sacrificed so much? Her words broke through the desire to fade into non-existence. “Look at me. Timothy, look at me.” My chin trembled as my watery eyes were forced to meet her gaze. My mother’s words then cast a lifeline to my drowning soul. “I love you. I love you, and I will never give up on you.” When I thought I was too far gone to save, her love rescued me.
A number of people testified during the sentencing phase of my trial; the words of Brett’s mother have echoed in my head since the moment she spoke them. Brett was a Marine on the verge of leading his platoon to Iraq and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. His mother shared how proud she was of him, of the man he was becoming even more than his accomplishments. Then, she acknowledged one of her regrets. “I will never again answer the phone to hear his military staccato voice, saying, ‘Hello, Mother’.” Her imitation of his cadence and greeting demonstrated her deep and painful sorrow with utmost precision, piercing my heart to its core, revealing the anguish my actions caused Brett’s and Kevin’s mothers.
Only two things can compel a person to truly change – something incredibly good or horribly bad. The merging voices of my muse grants me both. My mother’s words remind me of the blessings still in my life – the love and support of my family, the prospect of another heart’s day alive, the opportunity to positively impact the people and world around me. Les Miserables author, Victor Hugo, declared, “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” In spite of myself, in spite of disastrous mistakes, my mother communicated love and value when I was on the brink. She imparted the belief that my life could still have value. The words of Brett’s mother remind me of what I took and therefore the steep consequences of compromising on life-values. Her words motivate me to maintain course on making positive choices guided by values instead of the selfish choices that shattered lives and dreams.
When guilt and shame stir up the roiling sea of despair, when this riptide sucks me under and pulls me away from the shore, spinning and twisting, turning and rolling me, over and over, until I cannot determine which way is up or down, my two-voiced muse reveals the glimmering hope of living with compassion and social responsibility. Their words dispel the disorientation and pull me to the surface. My muse reminds me to look beyond myself, beyond circumstances, and encourage others.
There are things men, especially men in prison, do not talk about. We do not talk about pain or loneliness. We do not talk about despair. We say we are fine, when we are anything but fine. We put on an outside mask of strength, because to display weakness brings vulnerability. When we are struggling with despair, we feel utterly alone, like nobody knows our pain, our loneliness, our hopelessness. Yet we are not as alone as we think. In fact, we are not alone at all. Many of us struggle with despair but never talk about it. A person struggling with despair needs to know they are not alone, that there is hope. Someone must start the conversation.
My muse gave me the courage to start that conversation, to face the vulnerability of admitting I know the depths of despair, the practice of putting on a mask all day, saying I am fine when I am dying on the inside. I know the performance of smiling and laughing around others, but ending the day by walking in my cell, shutting the door, sliding down the wall, and sitting on the concrete slab floor, arms around my knees, head on my forearms, drained of all energy from the performance of “fine, just fine.”
By sharing my struggle, others can know they are not alone or lost in despair. They do not have to hide their pain or put on a mask. There is hope. Their lives have value and purpose. I can be for them what my muse has been for me – a source of inspiration and motivation to rise from the depths of the circumstances of my creation and sail the shimmering sea of a life of purpose.
ABOUT THE WRITER. Timothy Johnson is new to WITS, and I am glad to say he also won First Place in our recent writing contest. I don’t judge the contests, but one of the judges commented that it wasn’t just the writing that had him place so highly – it was also his expression of accountability in the first sentence. The judge that said that lives in prison. WITS is a lot of things, but at its foundation is truth. Also at the foundation is allowing readers to find their own understanding through the written experiences of the writers. I’m grateful to Mr. Johnson for sharing this, and I hope we hear from him again.
Mr. Johnson can be contacted at: Timothy Johnson #0778428 Nash Correctional Institution P.O. Box 247 Phoenix, MD 21131
For all posts from this site as well as current criminal justice issues, you can also follow us on Facebook or Instagram.
Hope inside prison is a rare thing. You can always tell which people have it and which don’t. The inmates who don’t possess this precious gift are aimless. They roam, trying to find the next meaningless activity to fill time. They have a void that needs filling and anything will do: drugs, sex, cards, fighting. They’ll do whatever it takes to not think about the circumstances of their life. I know this because I used to be that person. I never engaged in fighting or drug use so it was even easier for me to ignore what I was doing and justify my behavior as a product of me being so young. In truth, I was searching. I was hurting. I was guilty and ashamed. I was overwhelmed by the pain of a 48-year-sentence. I was disgusted by what I’d done to find myself in prison. Back then I didn’t have the skills I needed to verbalize this to anyone. Nor was I even aware that I had a problem. All I knew was what I knew, and in reality that was nothing. Until one day I encountered the other group of people.
The inmates who had hope were a different breed than I had seen. Something was strange about them, and I was drawn to them. They were alive. They carried themselves in a way I wanted to. Their heads were held high, and the guards spoke to them with respect. To me they looked like they had it together. I didn’t realize at the time that what they had was hope. It just seemed like they cared a little more about what they did.
It was at this time I began taking college classes and moved into the college wing inside the prison. I suddenly found myself surrounded – by hope. It filled the eyes of the ladies I lived with. They had dreams, plans, and purpose. It was infectious. They all had jobs and told me I needed one to. Nobody had ever told me I needed to get a job inside of prison. I thought all we did was play cards and sleep. I wanted what they had, so I got a job as a tutor. I was now working and going to class and spent my free time studying. I felt myself changing. It wasn’t an overnight process, but I knew I was experiencing a transformation. Maybe I really could be like these other inmates, these adults who seemed so successful.
Unfortunately, I still didn’t have a purpose in life. I didn’t know why I was doing all of these things. What was going to keep me going? In 2017, I graduated with an Associate’s Degree and became a certified optician. I even gave the valedictorian speech, and I got a job working for the Chaplain. Certainly I was now just as successful as those women I sought to be like.
Just as I thought my life was coming together, it came crashing down. I got into a fight, and my actions landed me in segregation. I wasn’t there long – just 10 days, but to me it was forever. As I walked back to the hole with hands cuffed behind me and head hung low, a guard said something to me.
“Aren’t you the girl who works for the Chaplain?” he asked me with condemnation in his voice. All of the shame and guilt I felt before came flooding back to me. It was like I was the preacher’s kid who got locked up. During my seg stay, those words played over and over again in my head. I had disappointed so many people. I prayed. It was all I knew how to do. I begged God for another chance. I asked Him to save me, and I thanked him – and I cried and cried and cried. Then I felt His love. It filled me up, and I knew that this was what it felt like to be Saved. I became a Christian in the lowest place I could find myself.
When I got out of isolation, the Chaplain showed me forgiveness and let me keep my job. I had to work hard to earn the respect back that I had built for years. I was determined now. I had found hope in that empty cell. I knew that no matter what, God would love me. I now had a goal post, something to hold on to no matter what happened. I was different, and people started to notice. I began self evaluations and examining why my crime happened. I began working on becoming whole. I purposed myself to help others. I wrote proposals for classes. I started working with the Prison Dog Program. I wanted to give my hope to everyone.
Then, in 2019, I lost my brother to an overdose. He was my best friend, but we had been estranged since I became incarcerated. I never had the chance to make amends with him and that still haunts me. I think about myself in that moment, and what I would’ve done if I didn’t have hope. But I did have it. I took that hope and organized a recovery summit for the prison. It was days of testimonies, powerpoints, and overdose awareness.
I hope I changed at least one woman’s life in that time. Two years ago, Virginia passed a bill for people who committed their crimes as juveniles. After serving 20 years they will be eligible for parole. I was seventeen when I committed the heinous crime that took my mother’s life. This new development, compounded with the hope I had, lit a fire inside me. I can see my future even more, and it is good. It is full of change, growth, and success. I hope I can use my life to change the lives of the people who hear my story. So I write. I write to impart hope to those who have none. I write to tell the stories I see. I write to share my muse with the world.
Mostly though, I hope…
ABOUT THE WRITER. If you’ve read a lot of WITS posts, you will know – this is the first post that has ever been shared here by a female. For that alone, I couldn’t be happier. If anyone has ever wondered, we rarely recieve any submissions from women, not because we do not support them. I couldn’t be happier about this being written by a female, but I am also thrilled to have one more strong voice on WITS with a different perspective than we have ever shared. I hope that we hear from Ashleigh again. She also came in second place in our spring writing contest with this essay. Ashleigh can be contacted at:
Ashleigh Dye #1454863 Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women 144 Prison Lane Troy, VA 22974
Unfortunately, I’ve been incarcerated the majority of my adulthood, in and out of correctional facilities since the tender age of seventeen; more so in, rather than out. Although considered a late bloomer when compared to some of my felonious fellow men, none-the-less, here I am, an equally welcomed recidivist.
As a young man, the revolving ‘ins and outs’ never affected me, or apparently I was too naive to realize the effects that were in fact taking place. So what if I lost my right to vote, own a gun or leave the country, I was a ‘street n-bomb’ and jail and prison were almost a certainty, sort of an occupational hazard that came with the lifestyle.
Never once did I realize the emotional and psychological toll the continual stints of confinement were taking. I’ve spent from two weeks in jail to thirteen years and nine months straight in prison, a total of five individual trips to prison, and I’m currently serving a 7-9 year sentence. Now I’m just learning the lesson I should’ve grasped decades ago.
The cumulative amount of time that I’ve spent chained, shackled, and caged surrounded by concrete and steel has completely desensitized me in regards to common human emotion. No, I’m not professing to be some deranged psychotic killer, but things that once meant something have lost tremendous, if not all, value to me.
Birthdays have become just another day, and holidays are the worst, most boring and slowest times of the year. I dread to see them, knowing the feelings they are bound to stir. “Bah-humbug’. These are only a fraction of the losses I’ve experienced.
I’ve lost friends and family who weren’t mentally ready or mature enough to ‘ride-a-bid’ with me, but I understand now, that is an earnest request. The commitment and dedication required to stand by someone incarcerated can be emotionally taxing, not to mention someone who is repeatedly returning.
I’ve also lost family and friends to old age, ill health, accidents and the same ‘street life’ that has stolen so much of my very own life. None of this having any exceeding affect, all just casualties along the way.
During one of my short stints home, ‘on the streets’, ‘free’, I managed to create a child. But, just like every other time, Daddy was hell bent on returning to the pen.
While in the county jail, with the mother of my child alone, needy and months into her pregnancy, I pledged to my mother all the things I planned to do right if only God gave me a chance. I swore to do right by my little girl.
Now, let me preface this next part by saying, I’m a bonafide ‘mama’s boy’ and proud of it. There’s nothing I love more than my mother and nothing I wouldn’t do for her, but I just couldn’t seem to ‘keep my behind’ out of prison.
While proclaiming my new found inspiration and reason for doing things the right way – my daughter – my mom said, “Well, son, why can’t you just do it for yourself? I understand you doing it for your daughter, but you need to do it for yourself… Stay free for yourself… Love yourself.”
The words struck a chord, not simply resonating, but finding root in my mind, heart, and spirit. It was only months later when I faced my greatest fear – I lost my mother while incarcerated. I received the news while in the ‘hole’ and on my father’s birthday. Adding insult to injury, I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral nor any closed viewing. Never given the chance to say, “goodbye”, or “I love you”, or “I’m sorry.”
No matter how callous I’ve become through the years of confinement, this pain managed to penetrate my core, my soul, my very being.
Where do I now draw my inspiration to endure my hardship of incarceration? From my daughter, my mother and her words, “Do it for yourself, son.”
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”
Romans 8:18
ABOUT THE WRITER. I’m happy to say Carter came in third place in our most recent writing contest. I don’t judge the contests, but when I saw his entry, I was pulling for him in my heart. He hasn’t written much for us, but what he has shared has touched me. If you would like to contact Carter, please reach out to me directly.
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
