Don’t tell me prison saved your life
While laying in my bunk, listening to a radio interview, I heard a man say, “Prison saved my life,” - referring to his time locked up years earlier. As much…
Blog posts.
Three Days (Part 3)
Monday 10:48 PM There's plenty of things I'm looking forward to being done with once I leave prison. Mostly, it's the smaller, day-to-day things I want to forget. Like the…
Three Days (Part 2)
Sunday 6:13 PM For my prison job, I clean the gym that the CO's (correctional officers) use. Above the gym are bathrooms and showers, a banquet hall, and a conference…
Three Days (Part 1)
Saturday 6:07 PM It's pretty easy to get tired of prison life. It's pretty difficult to find any reprieve from it too. Often, the best you can hope for is…
A letter to my oldest daughter (about the soul)
Dear E, I can't believe it's time to pick our monthly song to share again. It feels like I just did that. But this is a good thing when I…
It’s prison, it’s not all rainbows and kittens…or is it?
When I first started this blog, my fiancé told me an old friend of mine reached out to her and said the stuff I write is sad. My first thought…
Reader Question: “What are friendships like in prison?”
(Asked in a letter from Greensboro, NC.) Friendship in prison is a very powerful experience, but also can be a complicated one as well. Doing your time without a friend…
I’ll Promise Not To Give Up, If You Do Too
I receive letters from all over the country, from people willing to share so much about their lives with me. Their joys and aspirations, their fears, drawings and poetry, or…
Have you ever thought about the origins of prison?
One day I was staring out the window with a smirk on my face as I looked across the farmland that surrounded the prison on all sides. Another inmate came…
Toughest Man in Prison
It was a morning like every other. Things don't change much here. Prison is routine followed by routine, followed by routine, followed by more routine. I'm up by 5:30 AM…