Prison Notebooks

2 Notebooks And A Moment of Imperfect Humility

I wrote exclusively in composition notebooks when I was in the real world. For whatever reason, we're not allowed to order these notebooks in here, or notebooks of any kind. We can order legal pads, the kind that you have to flip each page over the top of the pad when you're done; I can't stand them. In the six years I've been in prison I've only managed to acquire two composition notebooks, one green and one black.

The green one, I got for signing up for the leader-dog program; a program me and my partner were kicked out of. Allegedly, my partner's slouching grew to unacceptable levels. Laid back in his chair at our weekly meetings must've been offending the dogs. At least that's what they told us. The real reason they kicked us out was because someone got hit with a combination lock on the end of a belt. The one slinging the lock somehow ended up on the worse end of the altercation, though they both required minor medical attention. After the attack, the one with the lock—ironically—locked himself out of his cell. After frantically pulling at his door to no avail, he slid into the open cell next door. Our cell. Long story short, the ever competent administration deduced that me and my bunkie must've had something to do with the altercation and we were promptly removed from the dog program. But I still had the notebook so all in all it was worth it.

The other notebook, the black one, was an easier acquisition. I got it here, at this joint, for two dollars. I didn't ask where it came from. I didn't care. I only asked if he had anymore. He didn't. 

I keep them both on the little TV shelf at the end of my bed, mostly for scribbling down ideas that come to me in the middle of the night. Last night I flipped the black one open looking for a blank page.

This is what was written on the page in front of me. I only vaguely remember writing them, but I thought I'd share some of them with you. You know, enter it into the eternal, and never regrettable, record of the internet, the public. 

So here it is, unedited and uncensored:

Random Thoughts, on a Random Page, in a Random Notebook.

—The intersection where love & pain mingle, that place they become indistinguishable is such a treacherous yet fascinating place to play.

—Tonight I close my eyes, contented but weary, in the unshakable knowledge that when they open again in the morning, the person attached to them will be anything but content.

—The me who chooses sobriety, to not kill himself, isn't the one holding the needle, it won't be the one wielding the pistol tomorrow.

—This thing that I have with disaster, it's more than a flirtation; the years of courtship have turned this love into a life long relationship...an abusive relationship.

—I cannot go to sleep without a pen and notebook nearby.

—Every morning that greets me unbroken from the night before is a costly rising of the sun.

—If I'm not producing, creating, expressing, do I even exist?

—There are not enough hours in the day and yet somehow, still far too many.

—A slave to validation, my writing is done in chains.

—When will the rest of the world wake up to the fact that I'm a fucking genius?!

—I give them GOLD, yet they treat it like LEAD.

—Where else can you be this good at something and still struggle to make it? Publishers should be knocking my cell door off its track to be the first to get to me. With my back story, the gravity of my history, my ability, my depth, my style, my look, my VOICE! There is no other author on the planet like me. NONE!.. Somewhere out there, unaware of who I am, is a literary agent that I'll make a MILLIONAIRE. Someone who has the drive to cultivate and the foresight to understand what I am, what I'm capable of...who I can be?

—“Sometimes it's more about the frame than the painting."