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Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

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Love

No Words

December 2, 2019 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

The judge dropped the gavel

his throat full of gravel

but time froze

he felt hollow

he looked at his dad

he shook his head solemnly

couldn’t look at his mom

he knew it would break him seeing her cry

so his head held high

though his knees weakened

his mouth clenched

unable to speak

his face telling a lie

body beginning to shutter

hearing the words of his defeated mother

being her only son

she cried out that she loved him

but he could’t say it

gripped by her words

he tried to say it

he just couldn’t say that he loved her back

but only diction it inside his mind

seeing the imagery of those words

murky and running like his mother’s eyelner

but he thought he could muster a ‘bye’

but he stuttered

then stumbled

beyond the threshold of the door

and as the door shut

he finally broke down…

he was just sentenced to life

and he cried in his shackles like a baby

babies can’t talk, but their cries can still be. understood

and that day, that man became a baby and his cries told more than words ever could.

Filed Under: Culture, Inside, Love, Mercy, Spirit, Trauma

Take A Hike, Take A Flight, Fly A Kite, Or Drift

December 2, 2019 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Walking…I just want to walk, feeling the vibrations of my every step onto earth, observing nature going on despite my intrusions, feeling the breeze whispering secrets in my ears, the elements dancing on my skin, inhaling the fragrant air, just a stroll, with no interruptions that block my progress or force me to turn around, limiting my explorations. I want to walk and interact with life limitlessly, my best friend was driving and saw a forest as we spoke and decided to stop and take a hike and on that hike, she found a vastly rooted lone tree that reminded her of me that she took a picture of. The storied comparisons in that tree spoke to her, and she narrated that story, inspired by nature. See nature speaks to us all, but these walls quiet those voices, I just want to hear them again and listen more this time. Even to be able to travel, I’ve barely seen life, and mostly I have imagined it all within pictures, one of my bucket-dreams is to take hikes up mountains and inside of forests, or drive across country seeing all the different landmarks, architecture, and cultures, possibly even fly just to see how vast this world is, how we can be so connected and yet so far apart, I’ve never been in a plane before but I’m in prison next to an airfield and I’ve seen all types, even multicolored planes and I just go imagination crazy, like what do the see, where are the headed, wondering of all the freedom right above all my captivity…oh and train rides, I want that too, if they still do them,1st class preferably with grapes skittles and wine-Dapper Destinations! but I just want to be able to observe and connect with life outside of a TV or picture, to be able to travel and see so many dreams concocted by so many different people that came to life, and to find myself inside the be architecture of all-Nature! Is it really taboo and dangerous to fly a kite during lightening? Never flew one…Has anyone ever stopped and watched the world rain around them while under an umbrella? Just the illusion that that creates is beautiful, its like you’re inside out, you’re in the thick of it but its happening all around you, not to you, and you are for that moment, impervious to its effect…you’re walking around with your own personal shelter so to speak, designed to protect you, keeping you in and everything out…but isn’t that how life is? We get into our own personal zones of comfort and protection, expecting the world to acquiesce to us at those moments, communicating so close yet so disconnected, inside of a whole yet oblivious to the parts and its functions..like do you every find yourself thinking…What am I or are we even talking about? Why did I do that? Why do I even think like this? am I that different or are they just that careless and dumb? freaking umbrellas! Someone it becomes a phenomenon to expose ourselves to the rain. Like it is so romantic, daring, rebellious, audacious, wild, unconventional, and cinematic…its just water! But there it is, water that can’t stain you but put a damper on what it is that you use to communicate who you are, how you feel, and how you value yourself…aka clothes, or our fabric disguises. We become so thin and thin skin that we rather just embrace life at an arm’s length, and voyeurism is the new hug, and exhibitionism is the new curiosity, stepping outside of your comfort to view other pleasures outside of yourself that may still stimulate some type of happiness that we can’t quite maintain as much as we need too. When has being happy become an event or surprise, somehow its so far contrasted from our normal states of being, as if people don’t feel unless they can speak about how what they feel hurts. People want to cry, grieve, and mourn together bto create lasting memories of bonds that blossomed from hard times just as much as they want selfies and groupies of moments they wish could last longer than that click! Well I’m tired of accepting pain, I want to live daily like a selfie or groupie lol, that sounds funny in retrospect, I want to stop feeling so inside out and just feel and embrace and experience and connect…im tired of feeling distant, I want to be present and contemplate everything I perceive instead of glancing at life! I want to be thicker than my fabric…I don’t know the answer to how to do all these things besides to just live and quit “just trying” to live. Maybe it can all start with just taking a hike, taking a flight, or flying a kite in every capacity of its positive connotations, not the negatively sounding idioms or sayings, that are used to dismiss people by saying that. I wonder if being a prison philosopher is a paradox, after all philosophy is just questioning what is, as if there is more, I mean that its not popular thought to view prisoners as thinkers, but then again, free people don’t think and question enough, maybe that quality is what keeps too many in their own self imposed prisons…maybe we aren’t so different, just like the plane fight, we’re all so connected yet so far apart…your experience is my own, and my own experience isn’t yours…

but we all experience, life should be spent more trying to experience and not straying away from experience. So, take a hike

take a flight, or fly a kite..or maybe we should draft, more than we drift?

I heard this quote from a movie that said, I think it was James Bond “you’re just a kite caught inside a hurricane…”

story of my life…story of life…sometimes life seems to big for me, right? But then I remember, what is life…without me?

Maybe Life, should experience me…

So hears to being Larger Than Life!

YoungR.U.S.S!

WayOfLife!

Filed Under: Inside, Love, Mercy, Spirit

This Can Not Be

December 1, 2019 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

This can’t be true

this can’t be you

this is Not the woman you said you were;

I get so confused

when I look at you

you told me that you were something new

I trusted my gut, but my heart got abused;

and here we go again

when will it ever end?

that I fall for someone that should have stayed a friend;

you weren’t what you seemed

a nightmarish dream!

we fell asleep in peace but awoken by your screams

and in that moment, you cried the truth

no!..

this.can’t.be…

Filed Under: Love, Trauma

givEND

November 30, 2019 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Off the wagon again

I took a shot of pride, and cracked it over the head of a shadow, then yelled, ‘why are you so shallow?!’

I admit I have insecurities

I’m still kinda fragile

but when it comes to my past I’m fast to act as if I’m ready for battle

til I see the shattered glass and realize it reflects me! broken and hollow

my mouth open, I swallow

gulps of dry air down a strep throat past swollen tonsils

my trachea aching, I need a chaser, there’s no mistaking I’m allergic to swallowing pride

running from truth, while following lies

fancy myself a leader yet following lines

that lead me straight to troubled abdominal signs-

bad ‘gut feelings’…

and that moment I wretch

is the moment you sketched

a visual of my regrets

same moment I’m stretched and sprawled over my mess

bile clinging to my flesh

what?! I’m anyone’s guess

this is how I deal with my stress

I’m a paradox, ok? simply-complex

death is a promise…but life is the threat

and my misery experienced inbetween is the cost from the price that was set so forget it!

I rather tilt up, when I feel down

hearing that colored river traversing my esophagus is an irresistible sound

draining into my spirit, the feeling is almost prophetic

how can I regret a cadence that is so poetic

I salute and surrender to your potent potion and poignant nature

you aren’t addiction

you’re needed, you’re necessary, you’re priceless, You Are Art

paint inside my soul with your brown silky silhouette,

slithering the silo of my mouth so seductively

I savor the way you satiate my gullet as if a serum soldiered serendipitously by saliva,

your solution snaking about so serenely,

until I’ve ingested your sacchrine of Serenity and Beyond!

solemn silence summoned,

then subsides to siphoned incessant swishes of kinetic formula until sanity,

sour sanity, is saturated by a solvent solace,

swathing my insides s

wallowing your depths is both a sacred and sinister covenant that whispers to me like a Siren!

Shut up conscience!

don’t sully my savior!

shamelessy soaked in a sin-sated by sensation

spurned and spun by a smooth and sweet sage

don’t be shy she says

sanctimony

I’m safe now

don’t save her

spare myself that emptiness

tilt her up and fill myself, until I dont feel myself

be strong and dont struggle

submit succubus, yes

but her salacious soliloquies, sound so alluring,

luring me ever so close…

I cant resist you!

I grab you!

I have you!

Victory!

You’re All Miiine!

and with pride I consume you in one gulp!

…

then you’re all gone?!

and I’m still broken!

so I break you!

then break down!

seeing your seeping, shattered shadow, I scream, “Why Are You So Shallow?!

I don’t get it..

I drank every last bit of you!

and I’m still.. hollow

Filed Under: Culture, Love, Trauma

Truth.IN.Dare

November 28, 2019 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

truth or dare?

what it feels like

when your heart is the subject

and facing a person that you want by your side watching the sunset

what it feels like?

is truth or dare

when your gut gets so upset

since you see with your mind, your heart is an issue, you havent found the one yet

love is no game

but love is a choice

truth or dare suddenly sounds like your voice

and you were so sure

that you could pick both

but you were obscured

by what we want the most

see,

no one likes feeling alone

because,

who do we talk with, ourselves or our ghosts?

you know,

dating a lot is just trying to cope

likened to trying to keep warm, now you’re trying on coats y

ou ask how you look because you are dying to know

you look like forever, don’t try on now more

but what if it gets worn..?

what if it gets torn..?

what if the wind breaks thru..?

what if you start to get cold..?

then, what if you get a cold..?

sick of each other defiance-

holding up your chin,

sniff your runny nose, suddenly sick of your coat

that coat is your lover,

no!

you don’t make it to sunday

before you two split

because you both go bananas

then you hit the road

this isn’t how you planned it

doubt settles in, is that one in a million here on this planet?!

now you become manic!

here comes the panic!

because this one felt different

the view was romantic

but you hit rock bottom,

a sunken titanic

pulled down by the weight of your heart because it is so gigantic

the bigger the surface, the deeper the wound so the more room for cancer

love,

truth and dare?

Filed Under: Culture, Love, Trauma

I Know How She Feels, I Promise

November 27, 2019 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

I know how she feels, I promise

I know what she means

about being set free

she wants to leave on her terms

but now I’m the tree

that’s bearing her leaves

but I take the breeze

and though it may freeze

I am at peace

because there’s more to me

and she’s just ‘A’ piece

I cut off my sleeve

my cuff isn’t linked

so I too, can leave on my terms

don’t feel guilty

we all aren’t innocent..

I know how she feel, I promise

cuz I felt alone

when I pick up the phone

and I’m dialing her number, but it feel too long

and I try to do right, but I keep doing wrong

and I listen to songs

that may tell me the truth

becuz I can not be that honest

no, I just can’t be that honest

I can not give her that power

I am a man, so I’m faulty

and that’s no excuse

but I am not use

to not feeling used

and I know she gets used

and I know she too use

to that kinda abuse

though I try to get thru.

Its exhausting

then she tries to get thru, but we’re exhausted

just tell her, I know how she feel, and let’s be honest…bye

Filed Under: Culture, Love, Mercy, Spirit, Trauma

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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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