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Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

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Selling Titles/Entitled Labels:

December 9, 2019 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

How can I follow the concepts of what you call love, value, success, and acceptance when those titles have derived from a whole different world and side of life that I haven’t lived?

There is a complete different mindset and disconnect with the experiences that I have had.

How can I agree with what you deem success, when your success would measure monetary accomplishments, though when I see success, I think of survival?

How can I agree with what you deem acceptable when I have largely not been accepted, only to be replaced by the acceptance of gangs?

How can I agree with what you see as value, when I’ve been shown that it doesn’t look like me and that I am rarely able to achieve it unless entertaining, so I begin to see value in the things that you see as success, my value doesn’t expand beyond material gains?

How can I agree with what you call love, because love. don’t. live. here!

I can’t find my place in life if I continue to try fitting into your accepted labels that title me in ways that I am not accustomed to, these entitled labels that have enough room for a selected few that don’t look act and come from where I come from.

So don’t do me any favors by telling me all I have to do is this, say that, act like this, look like that, think like this, behave like this because it doesn’t fit me!

It doesn’t fit us!

How about you take those titles and labels, and bring them to this side of life, and tell me what they mean to you then, what they look and sound like?

Then maybe you’ll understand that to most people, that love, value, success, and acceptance takes being bi- or even trilingual, because we speak different languages.

So I’m going to make my own titles, and identify my own labels, so

love,

success,

and everything else

can make sense and become achievable to people like me too.

I entitle my own labels, in that, I find my own power becoming empowered by my own titles, not yours.

So my title? Is more than your labels!

Life just got that much easier, conforming was never for me anyway.

Filed Under: Culture, Spirit

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Prose of a Con

Prose of a Con is a collection of Russell Wardlow’s prose and poetry written entirely behind bars. Through writings on family, spirituality, freedom, love, justice, redemption, and vulnerability, Russell seeks to show the humanity and hope of individuals like himself who are incarcerated.

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