My name is Marisela Rueda. Folks call me Mari. I am a Prairieland defendant being held in segregated housing in Johnson County [Texas] and I have just been informed it is due to my being a threat to physical safety of offenders or staff and I am a current escape risk, although I’ve had no disciplinaries or issues with staff or any other people in here since I’ve been incarcerated. So, I wanted to share this poem called “Sunshine” as a response to that label because this is who I am.
I want to write hopeful things.
I want to make believe.
A wish came and tickled my nose as I bathed in sunshine
In the form of a single dandelion seed.
I found a baby bird feather that I treasure like memories of tasting what it means to be free.
I watch the spiders in the windows as they too weave.
I daydream and make believe because it’s one of the few things they cannot thieve.
I grieve because I have loved, and somewhere out there, my community loves me.
I must believe.
I breathe and wait for a release for all of my siblings taken,
Because as surely as my heart beats,
This invisible hope is the closest thing to an embrace that keeps me from losing faith.
This medicine, this salve that saves me from heartbreak,
A bravery they cannot replicate, carried in my blood,
That no amount of their hate will ever, ever eradicate.
A song, a memory, a manifestation,
Sun, moon, stars, and wind
Every time I blink in this windowless room behind a full metal door locked with key,
When they seem to have taken everything,
Still I think, and somehow it nourishes to just play make believe
While I wait for me and my friends to be free.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio
