If you have a loved one or know anyone in prison, the most important thing you need to know is that deep down they are hurting, lost, ashamed, and feeling guilty. It’s a full time job hiding it in a place where weakness is prayed on. Imagine what that constant lie can do to a beaten down psyche, we all aren’t as strong as we may seem behind bars, weights don’t strengthen what’s inside, this isn’t built for a human to fully function and exist. Day by day it wears on us, the disguise is work in itself. So I ask, if you love them, don’t lie to them, empower them but also let them know their wrongs and what they need to change, because he/she is the last one to get the hint of a change needed within. Lastly, be consistent, don’t come and go, it tears at us, once trust has vanished and loneliness becomes adaptation, we become more animal than people. We are lied to, tested, cheated, defeated, and discouraged everyday, so we need the exact opposite at times to mend the damage. Not many are brave enough to cry Help! So I’ll do it for them. Help them! Pattern is adapted once belief is cemented or hope is lost. There’s comfort in letdowns because they’re expected, surprises are unsettling, unsettle them! Wrong becomes a way because no other way is shown and invested in. Love takes energy and time, so does pain, but only one is worn on the sleeve detected, the other, detached. Change starts with self worth, our self worth is garnered by someone seeing more than we do in ourselves. Don’t leave them, because their hope follows in your wake.
He or she may not know how to ask
he or she may be more ashamed of their past
he or she has to transform to survive
but after all that transformation, how much of the real them is still alive
we don’t always know what’s best for us
but a life is changed when real love invests in us
so don’t forget them, because it’s what they expect
the contrasts in life are the real reality checks
this is what it looks like, being broken, still trying to show that you’re strong
this is where you end up, after never correcting your wrongs
this is what it feels like, when an hour in a day is too damn long
this is loneliness, when most of the day is spent hugging the phone or humming a song
Culture
SuProsed2B-A-Con: You Will Remember Me!
SuProsed2B-A-Con
When I was young my uncle told me I will write a book one day, that I have a story to tell. Just the other day, I received a written comment on a speech I gave that said “you will be paid to speak on stage one day”. I knew my life was tough, but I couldn’t see the story, I didn’t dig crying about my life nor telling my business. Now I see that it’s about empowering others whom may see themselves in our stories. I’ve even found healing in it. So I guess he was prophetic in a sense, but I needed this captivity, I say that a lot, but I’ve been able to observe the necessity of my downfalls and shortcomings. The accomplishments and the work put in by some of the greatest athletes, entertainers and other historic personalities all have had storied times of struggle that they overcame. I know what I want and what it will take to get there. My mistakes are my masterpieces yet to be finalized and framed. My potential and promise seem like they’ve been divinely interwoven and set about ripple effects that formed a tidal wave of strength, perseverance, and interpersonal insight. I was recently told to not let the words felon, convict or any other negativity define who I am or what I can be. My struggles have bloomed experience and wisdom which enables me to be/do better. I’ve also became more cultured. I see my story and pursuit as a platform, and being short I can admit one thing, I crave anything that’ll make me taller, because once you see me, you will remember me!
I fought exhaustion for awhile going through trials, expended energy
was morally indigent, feigned innocence, the emblem above my engine symboled ‘limitless’ so never let your memory dismember me
my path is kinetic, prophetic, eclectic, a legend embedded
feasted on my past, don’t forget it, learned from it, I don’t regret it
I’ll do more with less where I’m headed, I’ve said it, you Will remember me!
STBAC: Perception, Perseverance, Pursuit, Perfection, and Per diem
SuProsed To Be A Con:
Perception, Perseverance, Pursuit, Perfection, and Per diem
-They say a cat has 9 lives, to me that’s an axiom for perseverance, stand lively after each fall. What purrs perimeters your life? What do you keep working towards, fighting for? What is the root of your pursuit? How do you view tomorrow and what value do you put in the moments you have until you get there? What is your definition of perfect? What impact do you want to leave behind? Are you on the right road to get to where you ultimately want to be? What is your value on time, and how well do you juggle it throughout the week, or do you believe you have enough time to relax? Presently I’m in a 10×10 cell on a top bunk during a 10:30am lockdown for count, prison, but I made my own prison way before this structure. Yet, I honestly needed to be here to get where I have to go. I lived by the day (per diem), chasing (pursuit) what I believed (perception) to be ideal (perfection) opportunities worth my fight (perseverance). Perception is reality, but we have to do moment-to-moment perception checks in order to see how we view each circumstance and situation, to be sure that they are in tune with our goals. I just lived by the day, uncaring of the next moment, as long as I got pleasure out of it in some way, but it coated an underlying anger and emptiness within me. My perception gps’d my destination..14-20years behind bars, an absent father of two sons and big brother of 3 siblings. Every action and consequence we believe we can handle is still flawed, because the variable missing are those whom are also affected by our decisions. My lifestyle and choices had countless victims. But my 24/7 became a revolving reality check, I had to change my perception. Realizing I need to live and think beyond per diem, I need to pursue depth, not flawed ideas of perfection, because nothing great comes without scars. We all have a story, and obtaining anything worth your energy needs a ‘knowing perseverance’. That is, to understand those things and people you give and take time from in order to make the most of your own promise and promise to self. In doing so, you will do more for those in wake of your sacrifices. The example in how you live, leaves deeper impressions than materials and physical-ness. Empower by taking power. Lead by accepting the rough terrain travelled while following. And bask in every set back, because in that mud lies an opportunity ready to bloom specifically for you, it could be that tears are the very spring producing its growth. Potential, is the mastering of gifts, talents and opportunities. Purpose isn’t displayed in a map, it is the map, where dirt roads are traversed, not avoided. Coordinate your purrs, because you have enough life, even when you feel deprived, desolate, daunted and destroyed, to get back up and persevere, pursue beyond per diem, sharpen your perception and be ok not being perfect. Place value on your life, live up to your own expectations, not the world’s, flawed loves or loved ones. Because often others will try to live through you, but you only have your own 9lives to live, no one else’s. It took prison for me to be woke, what is or was your wakeup call? Don’t forget it! Let it fuel you! Don’t wait for a big mistake, value each lively stand after each fall, because winter will arrive soon after. Don’t use house money, time is limited, see the warning signs. You will see what you choose to, don’t forget your past, but forgive it, by understanding your path. Reality is a matter of perception, open your mind, heart and eyes. Perception, falls are as we perceive them, 9lives are really just one, because a cat always lands on it’s feet, so for you, it may simply just be a matter of looking down to see that you are still standing soundly on your feet, and never really fell -WayOfLife-
Stories of a fall
Only written
Once risen
Back to tremendous heights
or plummets from endless skies
Once dreams scrape the sky
Gravity becomes state of mind
Depth, scribed as a matter of perception
Breath, alive battling through the scar of lessons
Winter shows, no fall is too great to overcome
Because “9lives is really just” the strength in “One”
Stories of a fall…
SuProsed to be a Con: Reasons & Relative Relationships
I phrased it this way because I believe we need to understand the role, construct and impact that feelings and emotions play in our life. Feelings lead to emotions, emotions control thoughts, and thoughts doctor perception, and as I’ve already stated, perception becomes reality, it sets a precedence for our behavior. So what does this mean? I wasn’t connected with myself to know that there was deeper puppet masters within me pulling the strings in my life, I avoided feelings, I preferred the calm and constant in numb. I chased relationships as an escape from feeling, only to add to the feelings I tried so hard fleeing from. Each time I’d combust, never knowing what was the fuse that would set me off…what would make me want it, fight for it, control it, then push it away…the ‘it’ being love, lust, sex, women and commitment. Was I lonely? I thought not, I had endless friends, women and attention…but every relationship became toxic, I entered them for the wrong reasons or under a misguided allure, a substitution for reality, and the women I attracted, well..even if you don’t wear it on your sleeve, misery still loves company, I was broken and collected a jar of already broken hearts that I tried to heal and remodel in my vision as if I was God. When bad plans go south…frustration, anger, withdrawing, lashing out…everything that shouldn’t have taken place, did. Who honestly blames themselves and sees their own role in the midst of turmoil? Abuse…verbal and physical…the biggest shames of my life, became a presence…the very things that altered and shaped my birth and upbringing…I fell into the same desperate destructive acts I hated so much. Reasons…growing up without constant love or a family bond, I seemed love in all the wrong places chasing hard after value, I wanted to be valued by someone, anyone! Maybe I was mad at my mother’s constant absence in and out of prison, the lack of a father’s presence, the many different homes I lived in…but I always dealt with it by not dealing with it. Surreal how what we run from we become, innocent abuse I call it, when we hurt others as a result of trying to doing anything not to be hurt. Relationships, I never knew exactly what kind of woman I wanted or what the ideal woman looked and acted like. I pursued my mother’s brand of love with attributes of close friends and people I admired, trying to craft a likeliness I could tolerate as if she was clay. Going into relationships for the wrong reasons, let alone setting off trying to change someone will end or endure the same way each time…chaos…implosions. So before you can love others, you have to learn how to love yourself and have value for self so you know how to see it in others. I had no self worth. You need to understand what’s still hurting, haunting and holding you back, you have to have a control and healthy knowledge of your emotions and feelings so your reasons will always be clear, and the relationships will have a chance. Your reasons are relative in everything you do, especially your relationships…stop fighting your feelings, get to know them just as well as you strive to know that of your love. Know why you are loved so you can love better, know why you want love so you don’t inherit toxic love. Understand that the things inside you left unchecked and resolved have the potential to tear you down piece by piece, and your breaking will ironically be in the peace that you are after…mine was hidden in relationships, the igniter of my undoing…where do you hide? It’s all relative.
-WayOfLife-
Colors
Lions, Tigers, Bears and I
they say don’t stare right into it
its essence may damage your senses
disorient and possibly blind you.
That intense hot burning
beautiful bright yellow orangish fluorescent
bear mace! F#@%!
I guess pepper spray wasn’t colorful enough
prison, colors rule
colors hurt
colors kill
The thing about a Flower
The thing about a flower..is beauty til death
It lives with grace, as it dies in that vase
You may only wear your beauty because of pressure
Make-up veils the truth
but I see your eyes, as if life is dying inside of you
Stunning the way you hide it
You are deeper than any well
Enthralled with such elegance
Like a bug, I feel fatally lured into your luminescence
But up close, I peer into your petals of agony
Others too often hover the surface, your look induces the chase
Externally masked, ironically you put off what you hate
Composed well since you first blossomed
So no one see’s your depth
You die slow yearning for trust and true love..
But you don’t love yourself
You feel like an object, a prized possession, a visual gift
Lauded after because of your appearance
Shallowly preserved, slowly wilting away within time
Dying slowly as you stand brilliantly flushed
The thing about a flower