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The Forgotten
The soft hum of the ultraviolet light is deafening. I lay with my arms behind my head staring unblinking into its glow, as cold air blows swiftly across my body from the vent above.
I can hear the muffled sounds of the prison behind my cells locked reinforced steel door. Gone are the days of the old iron bars, thankfully replaced by these solid noise reducing barricades. Somewhere off in the distance I can hear the argument between two cell mates and I am grateful for the single cell I occupy.
My cell is 12'×9' white latex painted cinderblocks decorated with former prisoners names and petrified boogers. There's a single sheet metal bunk, a bare shelf for pictures, three hooks for hanging towels, a metal desk bolted to the floor with a swinging metal disk to sit on, and a stainless steel toilet sink combo, nothing else.
Why am I here? Well, that's irrelevant. The only question of relevance now is; what's left for me to live for? I have lost everything, including my will to live. Without freedom and free will what else is there? Certainly life cannot have any meaning without these essential birth rights. A man in captivity and demoralized isn't a man at all, is he?
Even the men who manage to get parole see that they have lost more than just a few years. Prison becomes eternal. It changes you. Life for you stops in that moment in time where you started your sentence, while life outside the wall goes on. When you finally walk out the gate back into the world, you quickly realize that the world is no longer what you remembered. Everything is different, faster and alien to you. Forget the careers you might have once had, no one will hire you. Suddenly a sentence that may only have been a few years long has become a life sentence. You may no longer be surrounded by walls, barbed wire and bars, but you're still doing time!
I have lived a short pathetic life. Pathetic because of the choices I made to wind up where I am. I am only 30 years old and I will spend the rest of my life as a prisoner. I know I am not special, and what awaits me after my sentence is just another form of prison. A cruel societal prison where there is a whole new set of locked doors. Within this new prison comes more pain and less love than you knew before. I have no one to blame but myself, yet I hold resentments for the person who once promised me they'd always be there for me. Only now she's just a fading picture in my memory and I struggle to remember what she looks like. It's been so long since I've smelled her, held her and tasted her kiss, but what I did I did for her, for us. She doesn't believe that, and I'm not sure I still believe it either.
In here tears can get a man killed, so I laugh and joke with the other guys to hide the pain. I wonder if the other guys in here are doing the same? I'm quite sure they are all hiding pain of all sorts. Such a shame to have to pretend you're happy when you're not, but we make the best of a bad situation.
There are men here that I'm willing to bet have no feelings. Monsters. You keep your distance from those men. Men without emotions can be dangerous, but I envy them for not having to know pain.
I've been alone many times but never have I ever felt so alone. It's not that she's gone that killing me inside. It's the fact that I am not free to move on like she has.
I hear the keys jingling from the night guards belt as he walks the tier doing his rounds. He peers in at me through the long rectangle window of my cell door, counting under his breath as they do every half hour, then he moves on to continue his count.
I reach under my thin fire proof mattress and find the noose I made from torn bedsheets. Tonight is the first night and the last night of the rest of my life. Tonight I will say my most final goodbye.
I climb up onto my toilet onto the sink and snake one end of my makeshift rope through the thin iron bars in the vent above me. I pull it through so I have enough rope to tie it tightly. When I finish tightening the rope I pull with the weight of my body to be sure it will hold.
Satisfied it will hold, I hesitate a minute and think to myself, " do I really have the courage to follow through with this?"
I have no family, no one left who cares and this gives me the courage to end it. I am so alone!
I put the deadly end of the rope over my head and around my neck as a fat, warm, wet tear rolls down my cheek. Memories from a happier time in my life flood my mind, only making it hurt so much more. I will go out on my own terms!
I say a prayer to whatever God will listen, praying that they will forgive me. Then I pause another moment and I take a deep breath mustering up the courage to end it all. I close my eyes for the last time as I step off the edge and into the darkness forever! Forgotten.
© Kinga77
I can hear the muffled sounds of the prison behind my cells locked reinforced steel door. Gone are the days of the old iron bars, thankfully replaced by these solid noise reducing barricades. Somewhere off in the distance I can hear the argument between two cell mates and I am grateful for the single cell I occupy.
My cell is 12'×9' white latex painted cinderblocks decorated with former prisoners names and petrified boogers. There's a single sheet metal bunk, a bare shelf for pictures, three hooks for hanging towels, a metal desk bolted to the floor with a swinging metal disk to sit on, and a stainless steel toilet sink combo, nothing else.
Why am I here? Well, that's irrelevant. The only question of relevance now is; what's left for me to live for? I have lost everything, including my will to live. Without freedom and free will what else is there? Certainly life cannot have any meaning without these essential birth rights. A man in captivity and demoralized isn't a man at all, is he?
Even the men who manage to get parole see that they have lost more than just a few years. Prison becomes eternal. It changes you. Life for you stops in that moment in time where you started your sentence, while life outside the wall goes on. When you finally walk out the gate back into the world, you quickly realize that the world is no longer what you remembered. Everything is different, faster and alien to you. Forget the careers you might have once had, no one will hire you. Suddenly a sentence that may only have been a few years long has become a life sentence. You may no longer be surrounded by walls, barbed wire and bars, but you're still doing time!
I have lived a short pathetic life. Pathetic because of the choices I made to wind up where I am. I am only 30 years old and I will spend the rest of my life as a prisoner. I know I am not special, and what awaits me after my sentence is just another form of prison. A cruel societal prison where there is a whole new set of locked doors. Within this new prison comes more pain and less love than you knew before. I have no one to blame but myself, yet I hold resentments for the person who once promised me they'd always be there for me. Only now she's just a fading picture in my memory and I struggle to remember what she looks like. It's been so long since I've smelled her, held her and tasted her kiss, but what I did I did for her, for us. She doesn't believe that, and I'm not sure I still believe it either.
In here tears can get a man killed, so I laugh and joke with the other guys to hide the pain. I wonder if the other guys in here are doing the same? I'm quite sure they are all hiding pain of all sorts. Such a shame to have to pretend you're happy when you're not, but we make the best of a bad situation.
There are men here that I'm willing to bet have no feelings. Monsters. You keep your distance from those men. Men without emotions can be dangerous, but I envy them for not having to know pain.
I've been alone many times but never have I ever felt so alone. It's not that she's gone that killing me inside. It's the fact that I am not free to move on like she has.
I hear the keys jingling from the night guards belt as he walks the tier doing his rounds. He peers in at me through the long rectangle window of my cell door, counting under his breath as they do every half hour, then he moves on to continue his count.
I reach under my thin fire proof mattress and find the noose I made from torn bedsheets. Tonight is the first night and the last night of the rest of my life. Tonight I will say my most final goodbye.
I climb up onto my toilet onto the sink and snake one end of my makeshift rope through the thin iron bars in the vent above me. I pull it through so I have enough rope to tie it tightly. When I finish tightening the rope I pull with the weight of my body to be sure it will hold.
Satisfied it will hold, I hesitate a minute and think to myself, " do I really have the courage to follow through with this?"
I have no family, no one left who cares and this gives me the courage to end it. I am so alone!
I put the deadly end of the rope over my head and around my neck as a fat, warm, wet tear rolls down my cheek. Memories from a happier time in my life flood my mind, only making it hurt so much more. I will go out on my own terms!
I say a prayer to whatever God will listen, praying that they will forgive me. Then I pause another moment and I take a deep breath mustering up the courage to end it all. I close my eyes for the last time as I step off the edge and into the darkness forever! Forgotten.
© Kinga77
