by Daniel A. Rosen |
February 14, 2025
I lost so many years, and shed so many tears.
– Tupac
Three years now, out on this side of the fence. Trying to put the pieces back together, but into a different shape. Picking up each one off the table, turning it this way and that, trying to make it fit, form a coherent picture.
Three years. Only half as much time as those years inside The Place. The Void. The Black Hole. Pun intended. I used to count the time there in weeks. Three hundred and eleven of them. “I can count to 300,” I told myself, early on. Days lasted too long. Months were centuries. But weeks passed before you knew it, stuck in the routine of whatever facility it was at then.
“My last place was better,” we’d say as if it mattered, or anyone cared. Laundry, commissary, work, chow, rec, phone calls, shakedowns. It had a sameness, a rhythm, and before you knew it another Monday came around to restart the mind-numbing monotony clock. I marked the end of each week with a Sunday letter home, never missing one, not even during facility moves, lockdowns, solitary stays, and Covid quarantines.
Three years, facing forward but dragged backward by these ghost shackles. Two-thirds of the people I knew in there, now back inside, according to the statistics. Four out of five, not too long from now. Oh, but, listen to Them crow at their Summits and Winter Meetings in sunny climes – always sunny climes, Orlando and New Orleans and Charleston – about the progress They’re making. “Twenty percent!” They’ll lie, to anyone who’ll listen. And They’ll find allies out here among Us to lift up those lies, well-intentioned but selling themselves, wanting to warm up in the House kitchen.
These Councils and Associations and Foundations and Centers and Initiatives and Alliances working on Justice, full of fresh-faced, privileged Criminology Master’s students. Their latest report, have you seen it? It’s incredible, it’ll change things. Hold a conference to talk about it. Then put it on the shelf with the rest. By the way, 10 people died in state prisons today. Their court paperwork said: Assault, Robbery, Weapon, Distribution, Trafficking, Theft, Burglary, Murder. Their stories said: addiction, mental health, domestic violence, can’t afford the rent, warrant for failure to appear, wrong car with the wrong people.
I should be a statistic by now. They tried. An encore of silver bracelets and a cell for a couple nights, just to remind me. A shakedown just for fun, before sunrise. Everything hanging in the balance while the gears turned, a Judge saying, once again: “Stand up.”
They spit me back out: “Try harder.”
We’ll celebrate all the success stories. Fete the few who find success, with likes and clicks and follows and awards, and fellowships and thumbs-ups. “See!” We’ll say.
“See!” They’ll say, too. “This ‘corrections’ thing is working out real well! It makes these offenders/inmates/convicts/subhumans act better!”
But no one wants you to see. We don’t even want to see what we’ve seen. We try to unsee, but it doesn’t take. A Place where cameras are everywhere but the footage never gets seen. We always knew the cameras weren’t there for Us anyway. They were for Them.
A cage never made anyone or anything better. When it’s the answer, we’re not just asking the wrong question, we’re ignoring the question of who benefits from fashioning the bars and locks and keys.
I know, I know – you want more stories, because “stories move people, not statistics.” But you don’t want these stories, trust me: Loss, pain, grief, suffering, tears, dogs, selfishness, violence, anger, fear, strip-searches, scarcity, trauma. Black and brown bodies fed into the machine, fuel to keep it running long past the point where anyone remembers why. The cruelty was always the point. Fighting, hoarding, racism, addiction, isolation, disease, exploitation, terror, overdose, rape, death. Stay gold. These aren’t tales of redemption. We suffered so you don’t have to.
You want to be uplifted? You want to hear about entrepreneurship, and education, and cognitive behavioral therapy, and seven habits, and culinary arts, and essay contests, and “reentry starts on day one,” I know. Enjoy that fever dream. That’s not the reality for two million people crammed in cages or dorms tonight. Those are the stories They want you to hear.
We arrive back out here on this changed planet after years or decades locked away out of sight, and you wonder why we can’t function. We spent those years with our agency stripped away, our humanity wrung from us until we’re bone dry, and you wonder why we’re so thirsty. We work to unlearn the upside-down codes and lessons and language that afforded us survival, and you wonder what’s wrong with us. We have our freedom back, what’s the problem?
An open wound, still raw, unhealed, I know. Sorrynotsorry. It’s all done in your name. The People are you, and you are Them. Enjoy your true crime podcast, and your Dateline, and your Law & Order. Tell me again how realistic they are, remind me that “Just Mercy” or “The Shawshank Redemption” is your favorite movie.
When you see me staring off in the distance with a blank look on my face, this is where I am. It’s pretty bleak. But it gets a little smaller in the rearview every day.
Three Hots One Cot 