It’s strange what you start noticing after enough years inside.
The things that used to matter — money, bravado, reputation — they fade like old ink.
What sticks are the little things.
The sound of keys at shift change.
The way the light hits the landing just before lock-up.
The smell of burnt toast from a kettle, when someone’s trying to make breakfast out of nothing.
You start measuring time differently.
Not by hours or days — those blur together — but by moments.
Who got shipped out. Who got released. Who didn’t make it through the night.
There’s a rhythm to prison life, but it’s not peace — it’s survival.
You learn who to trust, which isn’t many.
You learn when to speak, and when silence is your only weapon.
You learn that a man can be surrounded by hundreds of others and still feel more alone than he ever did on the streets.
After my dad died, something shifted in me.
For years, I’d been angry at everyone — the system, the screws, the world, myself most of all.
But grief burns through anger eventually.
Leaves only ash.
And when all that’s left is ash, you’ve got two choices — let the wind take what’s left of you, or rebuild from it.
I didn’t know how to rebuild, not at first.
So I started small.
I read.
Wrote.
Listened.
I’d sit in my cell at night, pen in hand, writing letters I never sent — to my sister, to my fiancée, to my dad.
I’d tell them about my day. About how I was trying to do better. About how I hoped they’d be proud, even though I’d messed up so many times.
Sometimes I’d imagine them writing back.
Sometimes I’d write both sides of the conversation, just so I could feel like someone was still talking to me.
I guess that was my way of staying human.
Then I got moved — another wing, another governor, same walls.
But I’d changed.
Something inside me had settled. Not peace exactly, but acceptance.
I started helping out the younger lads — the ones who reminded me of myself at seventeen.
Hot-headed. Lost.
Boys who thought doing bird made them men.
I’d pull them aside, tell them, “Don’t let this place make you smaller than you already feel.”
Most of them would laugh it off. But some listened.
And when one of them managed to stay out of trouble, or got his head down and started studying, it felt like a small win — a light flickering in all this darkness.
It’s not redemption. I don’t even know what that word really means anymore.
You can’t undo what’s been done.
You can’t bring people back.
All you can do is try to be less broken than you were yesterday.
I started going to chapel more, too. Not because I suddenly found religion, but because it was quiet.
A place where I could breathe without feeling like someone was watching me.
The chaplain once said to me, “Forgiveness starts when you stop fighting yourself.”
I didn’t understand it then.
But I think I do now.
I still have bad days.
Days when the memories hit too hard, when the silence feels like a weight pressing on my chest.
Days when I hear a song from the outside — on someone’s radio, through a vent — and it takes me straight back to a different time, a different version of me.
That’s the worst kind of punishment — not the walls or the bars, but the memories that keep reminding you of who you used to be.
But I’ve learned to sit with it. To breathe through it.
You can’t run from yourself in a place like this.
There’s nowhere to go.
You either face your demons, or they eat you alive.
I see it all the time — lads who never face theirs.
They hide behind gym sessions, drugs, bravado, fights.
They talk loud, act tough. But it’s fear, really.
Fear of what’ll happen if they ever stop pretending.
I used to be one of them.
Now I just try to be real.
If someone asks how I’m doing, I tell them the truth — even if it’s ugly.
Especially if it’s ugly.
I still dream about freedom.
About stepping outside those gates with no cuffs, no escort, no number on my chest.
I imagine the air — clean, sharp, real.
I imagine the sky without mesh or wire.
I don’t even picture parties or reunions anymore.
Just a walk. Down a quiet street. Maybe a park.
Maybe watching kids play football, hearing their laughter, knowing life carried on even when mine was paused.
Sometimes I think about visiting my dad’s grave.
I never got to go properly, not without officers standing behind me, watching every breath I took.
When I get out — if I get out — that’s the first place I’ll go.
Not to cry. Not to talk. Just to stand there, free, and tell him I made it.
I’ve spent most of my life behind these walls.
But I don’t want to die in here.
I want to live long enough to see what the world looks like without gates and search dogs and strip checks.
I want to see the sunset without bars across it.
I want to sit at a table, drink a cup of tea, and not have to look over my shoulder every five seconds.
That’s all I want now.
Not revenge. Not respect. Just peace.
The kind my dad always tried to teach me — the quiet kind that doesn’t need proving.
So while I wait for the parole board to decide my fate, I’m not wasting my time.
I’m working on myself.
Reading. Writing. Helping others where I can.
Trying to be someone my family could recognise again.
If they give me that chance, I won’t waste it.
And if they don’t…
I’ll keep waiting. Keep writing. Keep breathing.
Because in here, hope is the only thing they can’t lock up.
And for as long as I’ve still got that, I’m free — even if the door hasn’t opened yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment