LOCKDOWN PRISON HEART                                Table of Contents Introduction                                          Renaldo Hudson                            Editorial Note                                         Katy Ryan  I’m Sorry                                              Joseph Dole Anguish Like a Fire in my Heart                 Jeffrey Boswell Every Tomorrow                                    George Whittington III Second Chance                                     Guadalupe Navarro Level E                                                Daniel Parker A Secret Injustice                                  LaJuana Lampkins No Longer a Prisoner                               Scott Caro True Power                                           Donald McDonald The Biggest Epidemic                              Marvis Alexis Kidnapped                                            Aryules Bivens Still Broken                                           Susan Daquila Unseen Chains                                      Timothy N. Dickerson The Work is Ahead                                 Donzel Digby Drive Slow                                            Tyrone Fuller Thoughts to Things                                Vincent Galloway An Angry Street                                    Alan Garnett Humanity is Never Lost                           Martell Gomez Stop the Genocide                                 R. Lalo Gomez Strive for Perfection                               Kirby Griffin Optical Illusion                                      Stanley Howard I Woke Up                                            Renaldo Hudson Doing the Right Thing                             William Hudson Dog-Eat-Dog                                        Raphael Jackson That Bluebird Bus                                  Gerald James, Sr. Open Your Minds and Hearts                    Keith Kimble Wisdom                                               Ron Kliner Momma’s Boy                                       Andrew Maxwell If I Could                                             Gregory McMillan Looking Back into the Mirror                    Tom Odle God’s Grace                                         Roberto Ornelas Forgotten Child                                     William Peeples My Discovery                                       Larry Rodgers Lil Lloyd                                              Lloyd Saterfield Roller Coaster                                       Ricky Tilson Odyssey                                              Shondell Walker Coat of Many Colors                              Joseph N. Ward Quest                                                 Eric Watkins Mental Resurrection                              Ted Williams Readers’ Comments                               Jennifer Jenkins-Bishop                                                           Jeff Flock                                                           Sister Helen Prejean                                                           Bill Ryan                                                           Katy Ryan                                                          Eric Zorn Introduction                                        Renaldo Hudson ___________________________________________________ Introduction The concept for these essays came from a lesson I learned from Minister Farrakhan. He was teaching on the subject, Who are you, and are you good for nothing? This lesson on tape changed my life forever. So I wanted to give back from what I learned. I shared with Bill Ryan the idea to have an essay contest for Illinois prisoners, and he went about putting the judges and prize money together. Bill Ryan, we love you, and thank God for your heart and your willingness to continue working on our behalf. I can tell you, the contest wasn’t about the money. I live here in the midst of these so-called “monsters.” Men came to me with smiles on their faces, like little children look on Christmas morning as they open gifts. They were saying, “Thank you, man. Sometime a brother just needs to be heard. Made to feel human again. The essay contest made me feel like a human again.” I am extremely thrilled that we are able to share our thoughts and souls to the public in these essays. These men and women are so brave. I take my hat off to all of them. Daily, I hear the hearts of men losing hope and the will to live. At the same time, I see the growth in so many. It is our hope that these essays will encourage others to think about who they are and what they can do better. We hope that you enjoy them as much as we did writing them. Please share them with as many people as you can. We want to grow. Help us to keep moving down the roads of positive change. May God bless. -Renaldo Hudson ___________________________________________________ Editorial Note           There is little that cannot be learned from these essays about what it means to be locked up in the United States, to live, in the words of Jeffrey Boswell, with “anguish like a fire in my heart.” The writers discuss the forces in their lives that led them to the Illinois Department of Corrections and the forces that now keep them alive and hopeful. I was struck not only by the clarity and range of voices but by the repeated calls for justice—for children, for women, for the wrongfully convicted, for all of those living on the “modern day plantation.” In the fall of 2003, news of the writing contest, initiated by Renaldo Hudson, traveled by word of mouth, and within a couple months, thirty-eight submissions, mostly handwritten, had arrived from six prisons in Illinois. Preliminary judges, Tony Christini, an English instructor at South Texas Community College, and Katy Ryan, an assistant professor of English at West Virginia University, selected twenty essays that were forwarded to the final judges—Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune, Cornelia Grumman of the Chicago Tribune, and Jeff Flock, the former CNN Chicago Bureau Chief. The winning essays, along with four essays named for special awards, appear in the beginning of this collection. Renaldo asked that his essay not be considered in the contest, but it is included here. And with it one of the most important lines in the book: “Who am I? I’m what the world says I can’t be: I’m a rehabilitated man.”  Since most of the contributors used the contest questions for their titles (“Who am I, and what can I do to be better?”), I selected phrases or words from each essay to serve as titles. Occasionally, for clarity’s sake, I made minor grammatical changes, which were approved by the writers. The proceeds from Lockdown Prison Heart will be donated to Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation (MVFR). Founded in 1976, MVFR is a national organization of people who have had family members murdered—by homicide or by state killings—and who work to restore communities by promoting crime prevention, opposing the death penalty, and helping victims reconstruct their lives. (See Jennifer Jenkins-Bishop’s comments in the final section.) Our title, Lockdown Prison Heart, comes from poet Edward Bartόk-Baratta, whose brother John was murdered in 1984. If you would like to contact any of the writers, you can find their information on the Illinois Department of Corrections website (http://www.idoc.state.il.us/), or you can contact Bill Ryan; 2237 Sunnyside Ave.; Westchester, IL; 60154; nanatoad@comcast.net. It was a genuine pleasure to edit this book. Many thanks to the writers for sending their words out to us. -Katy Ryan ___________________________________________________   First Place Winner    I’m Sorry   Joseph Dole  Who am I? Well, I was a boy with a man’s responsibilities but now I’m a man that has lost his ability to be responsible. I’m serving a life sentence and am housed in a supermax facility. I have two beautiful daughters whom I can no longer provide for, hold when they’re scared, or take to the park. They are the sole factor that keeps me going and the main factor in my heart breaking continuously each day. Who am I? I’m a changed man, one who has seen the errors of his ways, who can truthfully say, “I’m rehabilitated.” The only problem is that after my first felony conviction I was given natural life without the possibility of parole and, in other words, labeled as being unable to be rehabilitated. Who am I? I’m a patriot who loves my country, even though I don’t feel I got justice from our judicial system. Who am I? I’m someone who has failed my family as well as society, someone who now wants to give back to society and be there for my family but cannot. Someone who has learned what it really means to have your freedom taken away. Most people’s conceptions of being locked up are completely wrong. It’s not the physical things that you’re without that make it so hard to be incarcerated for life. It’s the fact that you’re helpless to take care of your family when they’re sick, to raise your children, to help in their times of struggle, and to give back to your community. Instead you’re a burden, a charity case, someone to pity. It strips you of your self-esteem and your self-respect. That is what breaks a man, not the absence of good food, alcohol, sex, or any of the other inconsequential things we may often wish we had to temporarily give us pleasure. Who am I? Someone who’s looking to get back some self-worth by somehow giving back. What can I do to better myself? Continue to learn. An ignorant man cannot be a teacher. The more you learn the better you become. If I’m ever going to be able to be a positive impact on my children, I must first make a positive impact on myself. If I have no self-respect, how can I teach my children to respect themselves? If I have no education, then how can I educate them? I can’t; therefore I must continue to learn. No one can ever know everything, but no one should ever stop learning. Once you stop learning, you stop living. Who am I? I’m a father who loves his daughters. Who am I? I’m sorry.     Second Place Winner (tie)   Anguish Like a Fire in my Heart   Jeffrey Boswell   I am a man first and foremost. I am a man seeking a better understanding of the Creator. I am a man with few alternatives. I am a man that is in struggle to regain my freedom. I am a man that is constantly changing, learning, seeking, challenging myself to broaden my horizons and expectations of me. I see myself as a man that quickly establishes myself as a fast-track performer, tireless, relentless in what I’m doing. I seem to have an obsessive preoccupation with right and wrong. I have a moral code and work ethic I feel is leftover from another era. I’m a man with morals and principals and a philosophy in life which guides my decisions and choices, which I feel gives my purpose color, gives it tone, gives it direction, makes me stop, notice and listen and then to consider my options, examine the facts and apply my logic. As far as a man of family and friends—it seems that ill-usage and the passing of this time has estranged me from the one and distanced me from the other. And now much of my experience even the most ordinary activities take on a dream-like quality. This is not to say that I find it difficult to distinguish reality from fantasy or the free-play of imagination. What I’m saying is that the outside world seems light years away. A Big Mac seems as remote as a world without prejudices. And thoughts of laying with a woman are likened to my mom’s homemade cookies. I know I’ve had some and I know it was good but the flavor is difficult to remember . . . I seek a better understanding of the Creator. I feel when it is all said and done all earthly roles are stripped away, and the question becomes, “Who am I really?” and while I’m still among the living—simply put—I need help!!! I am a convicted man of a double murder. It was the moment at which my shabby box of hopes and wants—which had once seemed to be such a fabulous chest of bright dreams—was turned on end and emptied into an abyss, leaving me with zero expectations. In a clock tick, my future was no longer a kingdom of possibility and wonder, but a yoke of obligation. Anguish like a fire in my heart . . . However, in the last 23 years I have remolded my character, polished my style, fresh with an appetite. I genuinely deserve a second chance. My concern, my interest, and yes my love for life, here and the hereafter, born of these particular circumstances in which I find myself alone, lonely, desperately seeking any type of kindness, and with a heart vulnerable to anyone who would care about my existence just a little. I suffer long periods of despair which I feel is put upon me by this system. Society simply fails to recognize my worth. I know this—as well as I know my own name—that additional time served in prison will be counterproductive with regard to my further development as a human being and a man with a sense of mission. I feel that in the not too distant future a hard bitterness will begin to pervade my spirit that could well blunt the sharp edges of all my creative energies. What is difficult if not altogether impossible to deal with is a life without hope. Such existence brings about a form of despair that is actually physically painful. It is a pain sooo great that death itself seems a reasonable alternative. I don’t believe I could tolerate such an existence for any more length of time . . . I’m a man that is in struggle to regain my freedom. It was thumbs down the final vote to cut my throat—life in prison. Man, this shameful place of steel and stone is not my home, where some live false elation on this modern day plantation, dungeon of mental and physical destruction. This is me and my dreadful situation. And it seems nothing will substitute for candor, nothing will dispel suspicion, restore tranquility, and confidence and reunify me with society except the truth. My desire for more of a life, for direction and meaning, is undiminished. I am in the nest of the enemy and my fear is great. Yet, it only feeds my rage. I am confident I’ll achieve my freedom of one kind or another, one way or another, and total financial independence within the next couple of years . . . The thing that is most important to me is freedom from this hell. I believe that all of us must appear before Christ to be judged by him. Each one will receive what he or she deserves . . .When all is said and done, what is most important to me, is what will I deserve. What will I receive. The question is, Who are you? I feel I’m finding out second by second . . . P.S. Regrets—limiting myself to a thug’s life. What can I do better? Continue my struggle!   Second Place Winner (tie)    Every Tomorrow   George Whittington III My given name is George Whittington III. My spiritual name is Ahmad Safdar Al-Ahad, which translates as “commendable soldier, the one and only.” I am a commendable soldier, but I am also so much more. Society has labeled me prisoner N72861, but I am so much more. I am a father, I am a son, I am good, I am bad . . . I am, I am . . . I am Nat Turner’s rage running rampant in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, I am Denmark Vessey’s vengeance unchecked and precise. I am the sword of Gabriel Prosser penetrating his master’s skull, I am every drop of blood sweat and tears the first and last slave ever shed . . . I am Marcus Garvey’s vision for his people, I am Malcolm’s passion for truth, I am Che Guevera’s love for the people, I am Martin’s unfulfilled dream floating in the air here in 2003, I am George Jackson’s unbroken will and spirit, I am Fred Hampton’s resistance, I am Frederick Douglass’ persistence for abolition, I am James Byrd’s last breath rising up from that cruel highway in Jasper, Texas . . . I am the pain Emmett Till endured in Money, Mississippi, I am the strange fruit Billie Holiday sung about, I am every Bob Marley song, I am the wrath Shaka Zulu brought to the British, I am the truth wrapped in grafted European lies, I am Jesus’s twin, feet of bronze, hair of wool just like the Good Book says . . . I am a scientist deep in my soul, a master mathematician made up by design to seem to be a master manipulator . . . I am a man short 40 acres and a mule and the tools to break me free, I am misery manifest manufactured by a mad scientist named Willie Lynch and his Uncle Sam. I am a mountain of grief soon to be a volcano of retribution and redemption, I am every scream yesterday ever produced, I am justice denied and delayed . . . I am an untapped reservoir of black gold waiting to release riches to my people. But most of all I am every tomorrow until tomorrows cease to be and my redemption song is sung . . . What can I do to make myself better? I can be my harshest critic and accept my shortcomings and faults and make sure an effort is made each day to improve upon my shortcomings and faults. I can strive towards love and charity for my brother man, accepting him and his faults. I can immerse myself in truth and strive for justice while standing firm amongst this world and all its lies . . . There are so many things I could do to make a better me, but the most important thing I can do to better me is to know and acknowledge God each day through prayer, studying his word and practicing his word at every opportunity, and believing wholeheartedly in him and the hereafter, because the life I now know will surely one day end and then there is only God and eternal paradise or hell and eternal damnation. Third Place Winner Second Chance                 Guadalupe Navarro             Who am I? That’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times. The truth is, I wasn’t always sure who I was. I knew that who I wanted to be and who people portrayed me to be were two different things all together. Who I am is a question with more than one answer, depending on who you ask. With time I’ve come to realize that even though a person may change, that doesn’t necessarily mean others will change the way they view you. Knowing that I can answer this question better than anyone on God’s green earth, I think it’s only fair I present myself from those many viewpoints, no matter how good or bad it may be. To my parents, I’m the loving son that can still do anything if he puts his mind to it. Their beautiful baby boy who (ironically) can do no wrong, no matter how much wrong he does. To my children, I am the Daddy that has been away at work for 32 months and can’t come home for another 39. In their eyes I am the coolest, funniest, and strongest man in the world! To their mother, I’m a man who told one too many lies, broke her heart one too many times, and swears he’s changed but just can’t be trusted. To my friends, I’m the life of the party. The “down for anything” guy that always had a gun on him, an eye for trouble, and wasn’t scared of the law. To the law, I’m a known gang member and criminal. A threat to the community. A danger to society serving time in I.D.O.C. To the I.D.O.C., I’m inmate number R03908. A ward of the state. A convicted felon currently placed in the Pickneyville Correctional Center. I am a man that knows pain, love, and hate all too well, but first and foremost I’m a man. I am a man that doesn’t always feel one, due to the fact that I can’t be there for my children and parents to love and support them, like they’ve always done for me. I am a man that has always tried to do right, be good, and make my family proud but always seemed to do wrong, be bad, and disappoint those who love me the most. I’m not the boy I once was. I’ve grown and matured and have finally found sense and sent the meaning in all the lectures that were given to me when I was young and “hard-headed.” I’m someone that can no longer play with a lady’s feelings or break her heart because I now know what it feels like to have a broken heart. I am one man that has truly changed but won’t receive a fair chance in life due to my criminal background and physical appearance. On the same token, I am a man motivated to overcome all obstacles and succeed because whether or not my chance is fair makes no difference. I’ll have a second chance regardless and I will make the most of it. I refuse to be a statistic or habitual offender with an excuse and sad story for all my problems. I am not the only one. I am only one of many. I am Guadalupe Navarro, a twenty-three-year old Hispanic man. What can I do to be better? Everything I failed to do before.   Lively Line Award   Level E   Daniel Parker  I tried to escape from Stateville in 1995, because my 23-year-old mind hadn’t accepted the 60-year prison sentence I’d been given. I immediately found myself classified as a Level E, which is an extremely high escape risk. My Level E classification defines me as a person in the eyes of the Department of Corrections. To them, I am simply a Level E, marked for retribution. The fact that I’m a Level E overshadows my character and my deeds. The correctional officers are instructed to memorize my face. I often see the look of recognition in their expressions as I walk by. Usually they will point me out to each other, or they will search me before I am allowed to continue on my way. Sometimes I am searched by three or four different officers before I make it from my cell to the dining room. But these are minor inconveniences. The real retribution is unleashed when I receive a disciplinary report, file a grievance, or submit for good conduct credit. Every hearing and evaluation is tainted by my Level E classification. Whenever I would go to a disciplinary hearing, the first thing that the hearing officers would notice was my Level E classification. The words, “Oh. He’s a Level E,” always let me know that I was about to receive the maximum penalties for whatever rule violation I was accused of. Over the past five years, I have managed to stay out of trouble through countless prayers and teethmarks on my tongue. But I have learned that five years of good conduct are irrelevant to the Department of Corrections. I am still a Level E. When I submit for restoration of good time or file a grievance, I cannot escape the disapproving pen of the warden. No matter the issue, a Level E obtains the warden’s approval only by oversight or miracle. The worst aspect of being a Level E is the visiting policy. Because I am a Level E, I am not allowed contact visits with my loved ones. I will probably never be able to hug my mother or grandmother again. They will probably be long-dead before the Department of Corrections finally decides that I’ve learned my lesson. I am a man who can deal with all of this negativity and still continue to hope for a brighter future. Over and over I am shown that my good conduct is meaningless, but I haven’t run out of faith yet. There are a few people in this world who know my true character, but to everyone else I am just a Level E. I dream of a someday when the Department of Corrections will tell me that I am no longer just a Level E. When that day arrives, I will have more room to grow as a person. I have to believe that holding onto my faith will lead me from here to there. But for now I’m just a Level E. Women’s Issue Award   A Secret Injustice   LaJuana Lampkins  When you take a mother and you put a gun to her head and you tell her if she does not cooperate, you’ll kill her children . . . she will comply. When you take a mother, as during slavery, and you tell her you will sell or whip, lash or lynch her children unless she meets your sexual needs, she will comply. A mother will do anything when her children are endangered. When the police took me at age 24 years old in April 1982 into an interrogation room, slapped and kicked me, ordered me to tell them the whereabouts of my children ages 9, 4, and 1 years old, and brought them down to the police station, put my sons ages 4 and 1 years old, in that interrogation room, as I was handcuffed to the wall, whisked away my 9-year-old daughter to some “undisclosed” area, all men officers, and denied them food, beverages, sleep, or any female matron supervision, then stood over me yelling that if I did not cooperate, and “confess,” that I’d never see those children again, I never signed a statement, I never court-reported a statement, I could not get to a lawyer, and I faced the worst torture a human being could bear, I had a nervous breakdown and ended up with 60 years, on psychotropic medication for the first 5 years. No evidence exists against me. The statement doesn’t corroborate with the crime scene or pathologist report, because other than the information they told me, I did not know because I did not do it. Your question is, “Who am I?” I am a woman, a mother, who found in your opportunity a chance to be acknowledged so I can hopefully be restored to the children, now also 6 grandchildren, that were once the weapons of torture used to put me behind walls for now 22 years for a crime I never committed. I am the female part of the broken system Governor Ryan forgot existed when he paraded numerous men across televised nationwide media and spoke of their torture, their abuse, their injustice, yet out of approximately three thousand women in the Illinois Department of Corrections, not one did he exonerate or acknowledge as also victims of a broken system. Did he only envision the system broken for men, and imagine that women had access to the true justice part? I am the voice of the women. What can I do to make me better? I am praying through me that the boundaries of reform will be looked at by the overseers of law at both sides of the broken system, men and women equally, that the next time a statesman stands up for justice that it be for all, not one-sided. I am that skeleton in the system’s closet, that female version kept secret while all the noise was going on about the “broken system.” Yesterday/Today Award   No Longer a Prisoner   Scott Caro Yesterday I was a heroin addict. I could never manage a loving, caring relationship with another. My only relationship was with heroin. I slowly began to not care whether I lived or died. Yesterday I was lost in my isolated, painful world of addiction. Addiction is selfish, complicated, and in many ways masochistic. I reverted to having only an instinctual need to supply my habit. Yesterday criminal activity and lying were second-nature to me. I would lie, cheat, and steal; anything to supply my habit in order to avoid the pain of withdrawal. Yesterday I was ashamed without self-esteem. I didn’t have any goals or ambitions. Yesterday I was sick spiritually, mentally, and physically. Yesterday I was scared to live life on life’s terms. With two years clean I use the word “yesterday” because of how far I’ve come and who I am today. I can never forget yesterday, because it has made me a better person today. Today I have love for myself and others. I’m no longer spiritually bankrupt, but very much spiritually aware. My physical freedom may have been taken from me as an inmate in prison, but I’m more free today than any of my days actively using. I’m no longer a prisoner to the disease of addiction. Today I have goals and ambitions. I’m blessed to be able to say I’m more than an inmate, I’m a college student. I’m focused on my dream of a college degree. Today, I have a relationship with family and friends. I’m a son, with proud parents. I’m a brother with proud sisters and brothers. I’m an uncle, with many proud nephews and nieces. I look beyond myself and want to help others. I see beauty in this world, and see God’s hand at work in my life. Today I’m proud of who I am. I’m proud of the person I dug out from under years of drug abuse and neglect. I could look in the mirror and be happy with who I see. Today I’m no longer scared of reality, but meet it each day with a confident smile. Today I’m assured that I never again have to use. I believe I could be a better person by sharing my experience and hope with others. I plan to pursue a career in drug counseling. I think by helping others find sobriety I’ll also be helping myself remain focused on what’s most important in life. I’ve been given a second chance at life and I plan to make the most of each day. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. I can be a better person by sharing who I am and loving others. I want to be a husband and father. I want to recapture the dreams I once abandoned. I want to share who I am with the world. All of these things will make me a better person.   Visionary Award    True Power   Donald McDonald Who am I, and what would I do if I were free? Firstly, I am a caged idea, a cloud waiting to burst, raw energy wanting to be unleashed. I was a dreamer afraid to explore my thoughts and take a chance that my dreams could come true. So I formed a false person, creating a sense of power by controlling those weaker than I. You know what I mean, the weak-minded and needy. Those rejected by their peers. Never realizing what real power was, I discovered that true power comes from ideas that are an expression of my will. So I began to embrace my ideas and develop them. Allowing them to form concepts and follow those concepts to their logical conclusions. My will becoming a caged beast whose hunger must be sated. I have become what all men strive to be, willful ideas. Ideas that bring jobs and prosperity to millions of people that have lost their power as I had. Were I free, I would promote a barely noticed movement to explore inventions. Restarting industry by opening factories that manufacture those ideas. Opening stores that sell those inventions. Factories and stores owned and operated by people from low-income communities that could compete in the new world economy. Communities that can use their greatest resources, dreams, ideas and manpower. Say I found a recyclable product to make furniture and I rent a building in a depressed neighborhood and hire the people from that area to build this furniture, using their own designs. Finally I would open stores in other communities providing jobs and building up that area’s economy. Building up a community is done by creating jobs for the unemployable, not by filling the pockets of a few rich people who would only computerize and move to another country for their cheap labor. This is true power, not what you can get, but what you can give, not who you can trick, but who you can help to live. So I dream about ways to provide a better life to those from my community, and I know I can make a difference with the power of my mind, and the force of my will. Caged no more, my energy longs to be free to create by the power of my mind and the strength of my will. The Biggest Epidemic  Marvis Alexis  Who am I? Well, to understand I must explain who I was and what I’ve overcome to be who I am now, spiritually and mentally. As my parents’ first child and only son, I was deemed to be a reflection of their hard work and love to surpass their success in life, a greatness that they were unable to accomplish. But just like a lot of black families, they had beliefs and determination to get me out of the ghetto to give me a better chance at defeating the biggest epidemic since influenza, poverty. It just wasn’t feasible at the time and to add to the problem destiny was playing against my mother and father being together. So bitterly they divorced. Now that left my mother to raise myself and my sister, who came four years before the divorce. The weight of the world now lay on her shoulders. Providing for her family was first and foremost in her eyes. So she worked vigorously to make a way for us while at the same time going to school. That kept her busy almost always, which left the streets to somewhat raise me. I cannot make any excuses for my downfalls and bad decisions because my mother still tried to instill good moral values and the importance of a good education. But my infatuation with the streets was slowly taking me under. I put her through a lot of hurt and pain with my decision to live a reckless lifestyle. For you see, the streets offer plenty of opportunities that introduced themselves to me, that would be the springboard to success, so I thought. But I believe the Creator had to show me that this life must be appreciated and used to do His will or it will be taken away in one of two ways—jail or death! As you can see, Death wasn’t His plan for me yet. So I sit behind these steel bars, my hell, to atone. Now you ask me who am I. I am you and you are me. I am a man trying to survive in this life that has made mistakes and sinned against God! Who is being punished for those transgressions. I am all of your sons who struggle to find themselves and go through countless obstacles, doing it first before we can understand it may hurt! I am that rose growing in the concrete trying to defy man’s expectation of my kind. I blossom into something, nothing short of brilliance. I am your brother seeking your love and support like extra legs. They are keeping me standing tall, when mine gives out. I may be just one grain of sand in a vast desert, but I am one that must play a role with others to hold together our people and make a solid foundation. With our uniqueness, we are still the same, children of God, similar to the rise and setting of the sun. We will fall and maybe fall again but we will rise again. I hope that when I rise again that I will know who I am.   Kidnapped   Aryules Bivens   Who am I? What can I do better? To answer these questions I must first briefly touch upon my past, in order to show my present self and possible changes I can do to be better in the future. Living in public housing projects on public aid, in a single-parent family of eight children, I was the youngest male of three but the sixth child. Though we were without a lot of things, we were still close and happy children. However the tragic death of my seven-year-old baby sister dramatically affected me emotionally and mentally. I entered high school depressed but an excellent student for the few years I attended. I did not make the popular list nor did I have many friends. I was shy and timid most of my life. Yet the second worst tragedy in my life occurred just three years after the first. I was basically kidnapped by law enforcement officers, beaten for three days and charged with the murder of an elderly white male. (In my poor neighborhood, Forty-first and Lake Park, in Chicago, any time a crime occurred on the lake front, which is just a couple blocks away, someone in the neighborhood would be falsely taken into custody, beaten, wrongfully held or convicted for it.) This terrible incident coupled with my past struck one horrific deep cut of fear within me. Hate and low self-esteem grew within me. I could not get over being subjected to such brutal attacks and blatant disregard for my life at the hands of the people who were sworn to protect me. This nightmare of my teenage years closed after a public, family-humiliating, juvenile trial, where it was revealed that the alleged only eye witness was lying and statements were obtained illegally. During these times, there appeared to be no one that I could have talked to about what was going on in me. Everyone seemed to know what was right for me, or how great my potentials were. No one was willing to hear or listen to what I had to say, what I needed to say. I felt like an outcast! abandoned, rejected! by my peers. Life did not feel real anymore. Thoughts of joining my baby sister began to sound like the best way out of this horrible nightmare. My life rapidly became self-destructive and I could not understand why nor how I got myself into so many bad situations. (My life was no longer that hopeful, dreamed about Successful Future as an Architect-Computer-Technician, shared with my Successful model-baby sister.) In the midst of this screwed-up life, I was blessed with a ray of sunshine, a beautiful daughter. However, my worse fears came to reality. Once again I was wrongfully accused, arrested, this time convicted and sentenced to natural life. Just as I was finally turning my life around. I had enrolled in the college of automation to pursue being a computer technician and spending more time with my daughter. But instead I was being wrongfully accused again! Now, twenty years later (has made me WHO I AM!) I have acquired all the vocation and academic education that was offered in prison. I lost more family members to death, drugs, and alcohol. But through it all I found myself. I cannot take credit because it is God that showed me who I am. God carried me through all these years of tribulations and troubles and used it to mold me into a strong spiritual man! He’s blessing me with the knowledge of his living word, and his way for me to live life, Amen! You see I came to realize that my ignorance and non-belief in God led me on such a self-destructive path, to the point of near death. I know now I am a strong spiritual man with the Holy Spirit that dwells within me. Those tribulations were only to make me strong. Because of my faith and trust in my Lord, I know God will always take care of me and my family. God has a plan for all my life here on earth which does not include spending my natural life in prison. After all these years I was blessed with possession of exculpatory documents that were withheld by prosecutors which establishes my innocence! These years of wrongful incarceration, although meant for harm, was turned and is turning into good. It taught me what I can do to be better is to learn to forgive and love as Christ did with those that crucified him. By allowing my hate and low self-esteem to die off I was made into a bold and courageous, spiritually strong man in Christ Jesus; still learning to forgive, from my heart, those who harmed or try to harm me. And learning to give love even to those who do not love themselves. This is what I can do to be better. This is who I am becoming and who I am.   Still Broken   Susan Daquila   Who am I? I’m a 49-year-old woman, who has lived a long, long life for my age. All my life, I have devoted myself to helping others even before my wrongful imprisonment took place. I found great joy being able to comfort or assist those in need. My mother repeatedly told me, I couldn’t save the world, but I never gave up trying. For my 17 years of incarceration, I have devoted my time to helping others the best that I can. My goal in life is to fight against the unjust legal system for those who are enduring unlawful imprisonment. I want to reach out to the public and let them know the system is “still broken.” Another goal of mine is to fight the legal system for incarcerating young children. I do not believe a child should do numerous years or death row for crimes they’ve committed. What they need is love and understanding to help them grow into productive adults. Everyone deserves a chance no matter who they are. People can change if there is someone to show them down the right path in life. We need more love in the world and less ignorance.    Unseen Chains   Timothy N. Dickerson   I am relentless in this quest for undivided attention with the hopes of also finding divine understanding. Incarceration has me bound and viewed as nothing more than a mere thought. My reality is another person’s imagination, enhanced by the adversary’s devilish plans to destroy my well-being. To escape this madness I embrace solitude with open arms, transform my physical self into written art, and take on a journey through the United States Postal Service. With that, let the records reflect that each and every word contained within these pages represents I. You have yet to understand me. I’ve poured my heart and soul out in place of another man’s, so that he may gain trust and love from the woman he adores. Now she desperately wants and needs me even though we have never actually met. Precious moments tic-tock away leaving behind the sounds of loneliness, only I have heard. No one understands the systematical ways in which I function; therefore I am labeled insane. Jealousy as well as envy present themselves in average, everyday situations, which in return results in hostile attitudes and unrighteous thoughts. Late nights I lay awake aggravated by the mindless babblings of a self-righteous individual lacking moral support and spiritual stability. Time itself seems to drag on in an endless attempt to disrupt and eradicate everything I love and cherish. I have been taken captive and swallowed alive by a beast that has influenced the entire globe. A beast referred to as “for the people, by the people.” Man-made laws and policies are in total opposition to mine but the question still remains of who is truly right or wrong? Even though I am bound by unseen chains in this land of slaves, my thoughts and habits remain those of a free man. It is with pure curiosity that you question yourself as to how I still survive under these animal-like conditions. My dear reader, I am an adaptor. Signs and symbols are keys for the conscious mind and are the same keys needed for self-preservation. In realizing these two things I have come to understand my current place and position. I realize that life is nothing more than a physical game of chess, designed to frustrate those who cannot wholeheartedly understand themselves. So yes incarceration has affected me in a negative aspect, because I’m angry with myself for not using the better part of my choosing, for if I had I could’ve avoided this collision with prison. It has affected me in the positive aspect because I have become more cautious in my thoughts because they become actions, actions become habits, and habits become my character.   The Work Is Ahead   Donzel Digby               I am a man serving a natural life sentence. The situation that brought me here was probably avoidable. I’ve experienced the feelings of guilt, which really don’t help at all. Wondering “what if” has also been no consolation, nor has the feeling that I was defending my own life. I bear no ill feelings toward anyone. The work is ahead.             It’s not a problem accepting who I am because, despite where I am, I am still the same man I was prior to my incarceration. I’m a father to three wonderful children who love me. My faith as a Christian has not been inhibited, nor deterred. God is still with me in this place. My life was very productive before, and still is. Working in the community, giving back the talents and gifts God has blessed me with, enabled me to develop the helping and sharing attitude that I use daily here in prison.             My situation hasn’t changed who I am; only where I am. Each new day brings a new opportunity to continue to help, serve, and be an example to those around me. I also look for learning opportunities. Are there some down times? Sure there are. Losing so much so fast, and having no power or control to change the situation, or go back, was initially devastating. That’s where my faith came in. I trusted God for strength, hope, and peace before. He still continues to supply all.             Prison can, literally, make or break you. My advantage has been coming into prison this time in my life; i.e., experienced in life’s issues, grounded in my faith, having many skills and gifts to share, etc. This place doesn’t have much to intimidate me. I treat everyone with respect and courtesy, and get the same in return. The shock of this place was brief, and I settled in; not with complacency, or trying just to get through by fitting in, but with a purpose; to not let the situation win.             My main decision was not to blame my incarceration on anybody; it’s no one’s fault. To place that burden on anyone would be wrong. Self-motivation has been my ally; along with my complete and total trust in God. I knew I’d have to maintain a positive attitude. I continue to set goals for myself. I have achieved a few; i.e., paralegal certification, ordained minister, stronger relationships with my children. There is still more opportunity to grow. Mostly what I can do to be better is not let a negative situation give me a negative outlook. I share my positive outlook with the young men I tutor in the GED classes. I let them know this doesn’t have to be an end, but a beginning. Through my Christian ministry I teach hope, and self-worth, and provide mentoring as the opportunity presents itself. I have gained a true compassion for the men here and pray daily for the best for their lives. My focus is set and I will continue to get better.   Drive Slow   Tyrone Fuller               I was once a very confused young man, never having a clue what life was all about, always thinking I knew every single thing I needed to know, always wanting to prove myself to the streets! I made a lot of mistakes in my past that I’m not proud of. The streets were my family, my church, and my Hollywood.             I would always claim my decisions were based on me putting my family first. I was just using that as a reason to stay on the streets. I lived for fame in the hood, letting my needs, pride and greed control me, wanting everyone to see me and envy me, fear me and admire me. The guy nobody wanted to be like. Before I got arrested I was lost in a world that didn’t love me.             Two weeks before my incarceration, I was being pulled by God to see the light. I got baptized and went to church twice in a week. But I didn’t realize that He was what I needed. And it still took another year before I opened my eyes to see everything. He tried to show me then. When I got moved to division 11 and put on the Christian tier, it was a blessing because I began to learn about the Bible and then my relationship with God began. But me being so young minded, I still continued to do what I wanted, forgetting about God. And it wasn’t until I made it to death row in Menard that I realized that something was truly missing from my empty life. So I began my change by getting to know and love me. When leaving everything in my past alone, gangs, drugs, and put my pride and greed aside, to love being real with myself and everyone in my life. And I started setting goals for myself to accomplish that will make me a better son to my mother, father to my kids, and friend to my friends and person for everyone I come in contact with. Losing the pride and ego, knowing that it’s alright to be sensitive, show affection and express my feelings. And realize that decisions I make affect everyone in my life. Everyone I see that I can help I do because I try teaching what I know, so that maybe I can a difference somewhere. Now I’d like to leave you with this piece I read in a book: A fast mind leads to a fast situation. A fast reputation leads to a fast proposition and then leads you down one-way streets that have dead-ends and nowhere constructive to go. So if I could do it over I would drive slow and obey the speed laws. Just something that helps me.     Thoughts to Things   Vincent Galloway   I’m a 47-year-old Afro-American who is doing 80 years (life) for a murder and attempted murder. I was raised in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It was a time of consciousness at every level of the struggle. The drugs came into the community and life changed. I dropped out of high school and became a hustler (a capitalist). Once behind these walls I looked at my life, got back into my studies. I also started to study the law and working on my case. I was sentenced to 120 years 100% in 1998. I’ve got my case back in court on a post-conviction petition. I could become a better person if I could further my education while I’m in this prison. I’ve had to educate myself. The IDOC only warehouses individuals. They have no higher education behind these walls, only a GED program. I received my GED here. We need a better law library, more law books and more support from the outside. We need a better general library and to be able to borrow books from outside libraries. We need jobs and job training to build self-esteem. My health would be better if they had better health care, food, more yard and gym. Our thinking would change . . . Thoughts become things. Our lives are surrounded by an environment of thoughts that have become things. An Angry Street   Alan Garnett              Who am I?             I really don’t know. My name is Alan Garnett, R17335. And this is my first time in prison. And hopefully my last time in prison. I suffer daily reflecting on the pain I caused others. Who am I? I can only state I was a good man that somehow turned down the wrong road. Who am I? I’m a man running down an angry street, trying to reciprocate the love I once had. I’m the person that ran my wife off, not realizing the true value of her, doing stupid things, too many to try to give a list. But here I have searched my soul. What can I do to be better? In a few months, I’ll be free to search. I love my family—the family that prays together stays together. I can treat people with the love and respect I desire for my life. I’m in school. I’m listening to my soul more and not allowing my emotion to run wild.   Humanity is Never Lost   Martell Gomez   At the age of 23 I became one of the worst-of-the-worst in the Department of Corrections in the state of Illinois and was consigned to the six-year-old super-maximum (supermax) security prison located in the southern town of Tamms in Alexander County. I am isolated with no human contact and extremely restricted communication and with uninterrupted surveillance and with no reformative programs. Solitary, not convivial; seclusive, not social; difficult, not easy. This is supermax life. The yoke of having been judged an incorrigible—a man beyond salvation. No saint am I but beyond salvation I am not. Since I arrived to Tamms (in 1998), I have learned what it means to be human and have also learned the power of the human will to overcome and get through anything. Although I have not committed a single infraction, my every request, attempt, and effort I have made toward my reformation has been denied, ignored, or blocked. Tamms’ prison officials want for me to understand “no” means “no.” Other than the basic services my body requires, my body has been the only thing worth providing for. It is worth thousands of dollars a year. My family has been my only connection to reality and to hope. Whenever they can they take the long trip from Chicago and pay me a visit. They have never given up on me and they have never stopped encouraging me nor stopped reminding me I will one day come home. Soon, I will come home. Not angry and vindictive but ready and prepared as best I can to take my place in the folds of responsible citizenship. The greatest lesson I have learned is one’s humanity is not tested and proved in the fall but in the rise. Humanity is never lost.  So as long as there is breath, no one is beyond salvation. No matter the denial, the deprivation, or the circumscription, the will to better oneself is the sword that slashes down the odds. It is not to the world one has to prove his or her humanity, but only to oneself. The point as well as the end belongs only to him or her who overcomes. The hope for all humanity is that the efforts of all humans be recognized and acknowledged by compassionate eyes. After all, compassion is the beginning of humanity. Shared suffering.    Stop the Genocide   R. Lalo Gomez   Who am I? I am a former gang member who once foolishly played a role in the senseless genocide that is destroying our communities. A genocide that is the direct result of urban gang violence, drug trafficking, and drug abuse. At the extreme end of the continuum lies a force so destructive, so merciless, that it devours everything in its path and leaves in its wake pain, heartache and misery. Early death or lengthy imprisonment are the unmistakable consequences that await and befall those who needlessly allow themselves to become slaves of this destructive and merciless force. What can I do to be a better person? Instead of being a part of the problem, as I once was, I can now be part of the solution. I can use the streetwise knowledge I have, knowledge I once used for all the wrong reasons, in a positive manner that will benefit society as a whole by incorporating that knowledge with the gifts God has blessed me with to reach out and help brothers and sisters who are lost and wandering aimlessly as I once was. God has blessed me so that I can be a blessing to others. I cannot think of a better way to be a productive member of society, to help make the world a better place. How can I help to stop the genocide? If I can help just one person from ruining his or her life by showing that person from my own personal experiences that gang violence, drug trafficking, and drug abuse are NOT conducive to his or her spiritual, emotional, physical, financial, or social growth and well-being, then I am a better person because of it. And society-at-large benefits because of it. That is who I am. That is what I can do to be a better person. This is how I can help to STOP THE GENOCIDE. Peace to everyone who reads these words.   Strive for Perfection   Kirby Griffin               I believe this world could be helped by waking up the unconscious mind of our people so we can break this repeating cycle of history of waiting for a leader to rise or fall from the sky and the bones in the graveyard to be restored as warriors and realize destination lies in our own hands. By taking up the sword of action, Christ is then restored life through us. We need to stop lying to our children and raise them to be prophets to execute the messages spoken. Christmas was laid down for economical growth, just as the King taxed the poor. Individuals should be taught of their ethnic culture because the oppressors will make themselves look superior. It’s impossible to worry of China if we refuse to address our present problems. Start teaching our kids they can be independent, because the public schools teach them to work for others, such as police and firemen, limiting their minds as children. Work to have better relationships with your children and vice versa. Stress drugs, firearms, and alcohol should be put down and books and science and prophetic thoughts should be picked up. Stop disrespecting our sisters and stop calling brothers “dogs.” If you take two kids and tell one he will be successful and the other not, they will come up different. Also, realize rainy situations will come, so stop looking for a fantasy and stick together through the storm. We may not be perfect, but we can strive for perfection. Good hygiene can sooth the mind. We are shown for athletic entertainment, but where is the thought process of it all. If blacks dominate sports with its millions of dollars as well, why aren’t they given full ownership to that demonstration! We need free things for our communities where energy is spent on constructive things. What our kids lack is money! We can start charities for those who love giving to see matters work. Focus on things, ask for our communities. Are they to help or tax? Put all matters under the microscopic eye and ear. For I am not impressed with loud persuading voices. I am concerned with the message brought. Last is food matters. All the food trashed in this country in jails and restaurants. If 70 cents can save a life, imagine how much we can do to help them. When 30 minutes pass, do we trash items from our refrigerator. No, we realize 30 minutes won’t kill or harm health. It’s homeless people out there and animals. We can help. Optical Illusion   Stanley Howard   I’m the child ordained to represent the love shared between my parents, born on the Southside of Chicago, Illinois, Nov. 6, 1962. Like all starry-eyed little boys, I dreamed of conquering the world but later settled on protecting it, like the impressive “Officer Friendly” I met in grade school. Life was carefree and full of promise and joy, until the world I wanted to protect began devouring my youthful innocence and molding my fragile and impressionable mind with the harsh realities of living life deep in the ghetto’s jungle. They say, “It takes a village to raise a child,” but my village consisted of extreme physical and verbal abuse, and highlighted by gamblers, pimps, prostitutes, armed robbers, home invaders, alcoholics, drug abusers and dealers, gangs, killings, and death. I’m the child whose life was touched by few positive images and role models, but filled with pain, suffering and hopelessness. I was always complimented for having “pretty eyes” (hazel, thanks to Mom—long curly lashes, thanks to Dad) but no one ever noticed the pain behind the lenses or heard their silent cries for help. I’m the child who walked blindly in misery through the teenage years with a sour soul, a diary full of tears and contempt for the world that refused to love, protect and foster my tender mind during the most crucial and vulnerable years of development. I reciprocated by not having any compassion or sympathy for the pain and suffering of others or for myself. I was numbed to pain and emotionally dead, and couldn’t love others because I had none to give—not even to myself. Like the majority of my starry-eyed friends that I was raised with in the jungle, who are either dead, murdered, incarcerated or strung out on despair, alcohol and drugs, I woke up one beautiful morning in 1987 and discovered that my childhood dreams were an optical illusion that never had a chance of coming true—I was trapped on Illinois’ Death Row and facing America’s executioner for a crime I did not commit. The world I wanted to protect and had refused me protection was trying to murder me. While clinging onto life with many other kids of lost dreams on Death Row, God dried my tears and took away the pain. He shined love into my eyes and renewed their starry luster, and made me a man. Armed with this new knowledge and power of love (responsibility, compassion and remorsefulness), I’ve dedicated my existence to give love, joy and laughter to the world, especially to those who are silently suffering from the pain of having an empty heart and sour soul. By unconditionally loving myself and others, I’ll continue growing into a positive representation of my parents. I’m devoted to this dedication in the name of God and the starry-eyed little boy who wanted to protect the world. Who am I? I can proudly say to the world that I love, my name is Stanley Howard, Pardoned Illinois Death Row Inmate.   I Woke Up   Renaldo Hudson     For most of my consciously sober life, I have been searching for the answer to these two questions—Who am I, and what can I do to be better? Inward and outward my search has been relentless. Yet sadly I must confess, the answer has been fleeting. Each time I think I have touched the surface, the rolling surge of reality sends me back into suspense. Who am I? Maybe the mental exercise of this essay will unveil who I am. The thought of searching out the real me and revealing him to the world can be frightening and very alarming. Because the world has been telling me who I am for a very long time. The world told me I was a monster the world should fear. But most of my life, I thought I was just a child no one held dear! Yet, I’ll try to expose this man that I am, and how I came to be. The foolishness of my youth and the ignorance I so openly adopted as my creed was the picture the world saw of me. I made decisions I’m unable to escape; in fact, they placed me at death’s gate. Hazardous ignorance ran rapidly within the walls of my soul. If only the world wasn’t so cold. I was insanity, I must confess, with extreme hostilities I digress. My world was full of bombardments from hell. My only true freedom came from being locked in a cell. Who am I? The court is still out, and the jury is deadlocked. Who am I? If I’m forced to tell, I’m the child screaming take your hands off me. You shouldn’t touch me there. Who am I? I’m that child with no one to tell. Who am I? I’m that man who was forced to look back over his life and see, I still don’t have a GED. Who am I? Some call me a grade school dropout. Some call me a cold and heartless killer. Who am I? I’m the man that woke up on death row. Trying to keep a grip on my life. I’m the man holding onto hope with a death grip! I’m a man trying to honestly grasp the true meaning of remorse. I’m the man trying to recycle the remains of his life. In the midst of all of this madness, I came to realize I don’t have to continue suffering from the dimwitted syndrome. I woke up to the reality that I didn’t have to be a slave to ignorance. The more I read the easier it is for me to see true freedom. Who am I? I’m the man who has become stimulated with knowledge of self and others, which gives me more respect for others. Who am I? I’m the man who learned we must stop running from our responsibility. I’m the person accountable for my life. Who am I? I’m the selfish boy who has become a humble man. Who am I? I’m what the world says I can’t be: I’m a rehabilitated man. What can I do to be better? I must continue to educate myself. I must make sure all of my dealings are free from selfish desires. I can’t allow greed to lead my steps. Or allow jealousy to run wild in my life. I must continue to share the message of accountability and taking responsibility with others that I come into contact with, like the general populations of the prisons. What can I do better? I can be an example to all around me, to let them know that no matter how far down you fall you can get up. Never lose hope. There is life after death. I should know. You see, I was once dead! Who am I? I’m a man seeking wisdom. And I was told, Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.   Doing the Right Thing   William Hudson   I am William Hudson, I think! Born to two loving parents, William Hudson, Sr. and Mrs. O. Turner—I don’t know how to spell my mom’s first name! Anyway, I think if one is to know himself or herself, he or she must go back to the parent. First, they are the ones who make us who we are.  First, to them I was little William, their son, not good or bad, but I went to live with another family as a kid and I learned a lot of bad things. I started to believe in being bad because it was getting me what I needed, I thought.  One day I ask a old man, “Do you know who I am?” He look at me and said, “You are a bad mother (fu---).” So that was who I was then, and I tried to live up to that. I thought it was hard but it’s so easy to be bad. I know that now. That’s not who I am and I don’t want to be known as that. As I got older, I started to see that, so I ask me, Who am I? I am little William, that’s who I am. I am trying to be a good man, hoping to hear people saying, “That just Mr. Hudson doing the right thing.” We know some of us take the wrong way in life. How often it is that a whim may alter the course of our existence. How often the simple decision whether to go right or left when one leaves a doorway can change so much a man. Turn to the right and walk straightaway into all manner of evil thing and go to the left to all manner of good things. Anyway, that’s how I got to be who I am today, a good man trying to do the best I can in this life. So who I am is just the son of two loving parents. This is hard for me, you know. I don’t know if this is how one tells others who they are or not. I just hope it is. Anyway, I am a good man, that’s all! Now what can I do to better myself. I try to read something everyday to better myself. I also workout everyday of the week. I do about 200 push-ups, about the same on the jumping jacks. I also run in place for about a hour. All that in my cell. Then I pray and read the Bible. Go to the yard where I run around until they say it’s time I come in. Other than that, I try to learn all I can so I can someday help others that may need help. All anyone can do is try.   Dog-Eat-Dog   Raphael Jackson   The question, “Who am I and how could I better myself,” could only be answered by explaining who I was, am, and strive to become. To explain who I am forces me to expose the person I use to be for better understanding of why I am who I am today. Who I was, was a thug that thought the world to be founded on the concept of dog-eat-dog, that my survival depended on the capitalization of the suffering and/or weakness of others, without regard to that person’s well being or feelings. Nor with regard to the spiritual and legal debt I would have to pay for my actions. I could use the conditions in the environment I was born into as the sole contributing factor for that attitude. Although it played a large percentage, I blame myself for falling victim to that environment. That’s assuming I had a choice. Who I am is an individual that has grown to the point where I understand that I determine my future. That’s why I use the word “individual” to describe myself now, rather than thug. The thug that I use to be didn’t have an individual frame of thought. I allowed the principles and concepts of others determine my outlook on life. As an individual I see the mistakes that I made and how to avoid those mistakes in the future. Although I see the mistakes, it’s still difficult to overcome some obstacles. I’m 26 and have been incarcerated for 10 years. Most of my time incarcerated has been consumed with plotting and calculating different strategies on how to deal with the personalities of officers and inmates within this environment. Most of those plots and calculations were built upon that dog-eat-dog mentality. The individual that I am is caught at a crossroad. Trying to destroy but also retain parts of that mentality. Telling myself that to continue my growth I must destroy that mentality. At the same time telling myself that I cannot survive this environment without that mentality. Who I’m striving to become is a man. There is a difference between a male and man. Reaching the age of 21 doesn’t make a man, only legal by man’s law. He becomes a man when he realizes and utilizes the principle of responsibility for his actions, family, and community. Bettering myself is continuing to strive for manhood by utilizing the principles of mind (to educate myself in areas that may be conducive to my community and family. To be mentally strong enough to stand as an individual), body (the willingness to make physical sacrifices to achieve my goal), and soul (using spirituality as the foundation to build a righteous life.) So who I am is an individual who has grown out of the shell of my former self. Still striving to reach my full potential. Bettering myself by utilizing the principles of mind, body, soul, and responsibility.     That Bluebird Bus