Okay. ‘Life Behind a Razor Wire.’
It’s all lies, you know. Fantasy worlds, bull crap. I’m doing the wheel. Every morning for count, every afternoon, mid-afternoon, every evening. Round and round we go. It’s a wheel, like a ride. See I’ve got no one out there. My parents are gone, my brothers and sisters: Sean, Diane, and Michelle, wife and kids. Everybody’s gone, even my dogs and cats. I got, I got, nobody out there. So I cry in my cell alone, ain’t let no one see weakness in me because the wolves, the vultures always watching ready to strike.
And I’ve done the best I can over the years to better myself as a human being with education, my programs, and my faith in God. I remember in the courtroom my victim’s family members saying to me, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, “no matter what you do, no matter what you say, we will never forgive you never, never, never.” And with this life sentence hopefully, I can help one person, just one person making from the same mistakes I made. Just one.
You see, as a child I was raped multiple times. My sister, who was a victim of this abuse told my parents about it. My parents said it was just a nightmare, a dream, it had never happened. It was just a nightmare. But it did happen. I remember those who abused me said to me if I said anything a cross would burn in my chest. I would burn in hell. That did happen. So me and my sister never got any help. My sister ended up with a recovering drug addict. And me? I got a double life sentence. You see, we didn’t see the world in a proper frame of eyes of a child. We saw it in a tilted sort of way: in black and white, not color. No, we never got any help.
I swore nobody would ever hurt me again. Nobody. And then I met a woman, you know? Fell in love. We got married. She was the most beautiful woman ever, I ever fell in love with, my wife. And we got married in Louisville, Kentucky. I didn’t pay her enough attention. She started having multiple affairs and we went into therapy. I tried to tell her that I’m going to try to pay more attention and show her how much I love her. I got her pregnant again. I thought we were happy. And midway through the pregnancy, she aborted the child because she was sleeping with my best friend. I left and she begged me to come back. She left, I begged her to come back. She was with this person, that person. I had a mental health breakdown. Ended up with a double life sentence. You see, I don’t deserve a second chance. I don’t deserve it. I am the unforgiven. I tried to commit suicide but I just couldn’t do it. I guess I’d rather live with the agony and pain.
There’s one thing I dream about most now. When I was a child with my mom and dad, my brothers and sister at the beach, and the dog is catching a Frisbee along the beach. And then with my wife and kids when we were happy. And the dog catching the Frisbee along the beach. A place I can never get back to, a place I can only dream about. So I live in my dreams and my fantasies. Now I don’t, I don’t deserve a second chance. I can’t forgive myself. I am the unforgiven. This is it. Last rodeo. Life behind the razor wire. I am the unforgiven.
Thank you. That was ‘Life Behind the Razor Wire.’ That’s from my play ‘Life Behind the Razor Wire’ which I staged at Grateford in 2017 and my goal is to have it published on Amazon. Thank you.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
