Notes from Exile: Letter to Myself
Log/Verse: daily reflections from prison, written every morning at my bunk. Part poem, part log book.
Yesterday in Justice Notes, I shared a guest perspective on the “Four R’s” of renewal: Responsibility, Remorse, Restoration, and Renewal. Today’s Log/Verse echoes that theme but from the inside out. This piece, written while I was incarcerated and later published in my Moonstone Publishing collection, A Different Kind of Hell, captures the tortured dialogue with self that every inmate faces—the struggle to reconcile who you were, who you are, and who you might become. It’s called “Letter to Myself.”
Letter to Myself
Dear You,
I’ve been watching you carefully since you arrived here.
You seem like the same guy to me.
The same person I love and hate.
I’m not sure what I think about you.
I see you living here as has been your way all along, even back in your old world: a ghost.
Just more of one now.
There is still the missing piece that the world never gets to see.
You know, the one you don’t even let yourself see or realize or let out,
comes out every once in a while, under great duress.
But then you quickly put it back and move on, praying no one noticed.
Most times, no one does.
Every once in a while, somebody notices and even remembers.
Your greatest fear.
Actually, I don’t know what the hell you’re so afraid of.
I guess it’s just because you’re not sure what kind of person you really are.
But does anyone?
You’d think that here (prison) is the place you could figure that out.
No one really cares here, at least they say they don’t.
But they do work hard to spread their edited bios
with all sorts of narratives that they keep retelling
to everyone and anyone who’ll listen.
And this is a good place for that because everyone is open to listening.
It makes everyone feel better.
But not you.
Because even though you do it too, you’re still not sure,
at the end of the day, who is the hero and who is the villain.
I’m getting tired of writing this
because I know it’s not going to make any difference.
You’re just going back to being the ghost.
It’s okay.
I forgive you.
You, Me, John, Jack, whoever.
P.S. You’ve got time to figure that out ─ the who I mean
You can read the entire collection of poems, titled A Different Kind of Hell, published by Moonstone Publishing.
Very Powerful John…