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Why I Care About Convicts |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sandra Ahten/ Micheal Youngren
Email: spiritofsandra (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!) |
15 Sep 2004
Modified: 10:12:09 PM |
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A letter from prison. |
I was telling a friend about the fact that my friend Michael has no access to a typewriter in prison, because of his lack of funds. Explaining that his state pay, while working a full time job in the kitchen is $30 / month. From this he buys his postage, stationary, laundry detergent, deodorant, toothpaste, and all any other items except basic meals. He saved for years to buy a television and it was recently ruined by a fellow cellmate. A woman overheard me telling my friend about the circumstances. “It’s my opinion,” she quipped, “that prison should not be so inviting that they want to return.”
I agree. Of course. We’ve got that covered. I’m pretty sure recidivism isn’t due to the desire to get back to a used Smith Corola. Perhaps it is lack of preparation for the life on the outside that drives our recidivation rate upward of 57 percent. Why not prepare a writer for writing? Why not prepare a human being to have human needs met? Perhaps relationships with family and friends could be encouraged and strengthened by placing inmates in facilities close to their family, or by allowing inmates to use calling cards instead of having to pay pumped up collect call rates.
Perhaps I can’t change the system. (Though I can try). But I’m trying to find ways to at the very least remind us to remember that there are folks that our part of our community whom we could easily forget as we go about our day to day lives. Let’s not forget.
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While my son was incarcerated Michael was his cellmate as in the Illinois Department of Corrections. We correspond regularly and I have his permission to reprint his writing.
Sept. 4, 2004
Sandra,
I am so lost tonite, so alone. The weight of this cold hell threatens to crush me. I feel this impending sorrow closing in all around me. A deep sense of loss and fear has settled upon me.
I am just here. No one needs me here. No one needs my compassion love or empathy. No one needs my help or advice. No on needs my caress or my touch.
I fear that no friend will ever know my care or concern. No lover will ever know my desire. I will never hold a woman or brush the hair away gently that has fallen into her eyes.
There is nothing to have and nothing to hold here. There is no ear to whisper into.
I am breaking into tiny pieces in here. I fear I will loose more of myself here than I will be able to replace.
What will be left of me in five years?
What will be left to give… what will be left to give… what will be left to take?
What I would give for pain right now. The pain that comes from the sting of a harsh word or action of a lover. For then I would know I’m alive. Then I could feel!
I try to tell myself that I will be “there” one day… wherever “there” is and how ever long it takes. But tonite such places seem like some ridiculous fantasy I’ve been holding onto just to have something to hold.
Silence is too heavy. Music is too cruel. Conversation is pointless. Memories are too painful. The future too far away. The night is pressing in on every side and I am near tears in this concrete box.
Autumn is coming and I will suffer as I do every year at autumn. I will ache, yearn, long and crave all the beauty, sweet sadness and crisp mornings I will miss out on.
I will not carve a pumpkin. I will not sit with loved ones as a turkey is carved. I will not snuggle in a thick sweater by the tree at Christmas. I will not wear a dumb hat or blow an irritating noise maker at New Years. I will not kiss a lover on Valentines day or paint an egg at Easter… and not a single of all those events will penetrate these grimy hopeless life draining walls.
And every time I look in the mirror I am consumed with hatred and wish I could reach through to choke the fucking life of the bastard that put me here.
I’m going crazy.
I have your picture taped to the bottom of the bunk above me. It reminds me tonite that somewhere out there someone loves me. There is a line that eyes can’t see, it runs from that picture to my soul – it is the only thing keeping me from free falling into this abyss beneath me.
Michael
Sept. 7, 2004
Sandra
Days have passed since I wrote that letter. I am not presently at that same exact point but I am not very far away from it either – I don’t think I ever am, here. I hate depression. I feel so weak when I succumb to it. But it is stronger than my will to fight it at times.
I feel like I’m spinning my wheels. There is so much going on inside me with no place for it to go. I want to do something physically constructive. Make, build or produce something that I can stand back and bask in a sense of accomplishment. But there is little or nothing that I can do this with.
I want someone to need me for something. To need my comfort or wisdom. To need a hug. Anything.
I need to interact with people of a greater caliber than those around me.
I need, I need, I need. Or are those wants?
I have so much pent up energy. Energy to do and to go and to see.
To experience everything from the feel of bark on a tree to the exhilaration of conquering a personal challenge. To taste everything from a gumdrop to the salt on a lovers skin.
Pent up emotions. Pent up lust. Pent up desire. And they grow inside of me daily.
What to do. What to do.
TIME.
Love,
Michael
Michael appreciates coorespondence.
B37418
Michael Youngren
Shawnee Correction Center
6665 State Rte. 146
Vienna IL 62995 |
This work is in the public domain |
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Re: Why I Care About Convicts |
by Sandra
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
16 Sep 2004
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What ever crime most inmates committed, most will be released back into our communities. So while Chuck couldn't care less about what their circumstances may be for their own comfort, I would think that most people would care whether they are prepared for a life a non-crime when they are returned to the streets.
I also must say that many folks are not in jail "but for the grace of god"... or the grace of privilege... or the grace of just not getting caught for doing stupid things when they were young. I am one of those as are many people I know. |
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Re: Why I Care About Convicts |
by Wendy Edwards
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
16 Sep 2004
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Has anyone else seen the movie "Stevie?" It was actually shot in Illinois and it's a documentary about the life of someone currently in our state's prison system. It was worth watching, IMHO. |
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Re: Books for prisoners |
by Wendy Edwards
wedwards (nospam) uiuc.edu (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
16 Sep 2004
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To put the "Books for Prisoners" effort in context, it isn't an attempt to turn prisons into country clubs. It's more about meeting basic needs and providing some means for self-improvement. Do you really begrudge them things like books and writing materials? |
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Re: Why I Care About Convicts |
by chuck
chuck (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
16 Sep 2004
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No, I don't think they should be denied books and writing materials, unless they plan on stabbing someone in the neck with the pencil. Perhaps I was making a more general point about convicts; I was trying to focus it more but nobody can tell me why this guy is in jail. |
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Re: Why I Care About Convicts |
by Anna Epelbaum
aepelbaum (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
17 Sep 2004
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To care about convicts should mean to try to eliminate main reasons which brought them to crime at the first place. Other way either nice intentions or charity are not going to do anything substantial. Radical changes of the system of secondary public education or at least in this system should eliminate one of the main reasons pushing these schools students or even graduates into crime. |
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Re: Why I Care About Convicts |
by Kate
ashtara (nospam) sbcglobal.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
28 Mar 2006
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Michael always was a wordsmith. |
