Continuing with selections from A DIFFERENT KIND OF HELL, the forthcoming second edition from Moonstone Press, I’ve returned to another early entry from my prison journal. Like much of my writing during those first days, it was written in a stream-of-consciousness style, attempting to capture the confusion and disorientation of entering prison.
HANDCUFFS
are more complicated than you think because there is the pull around and I wasn’t even sure what the guard wanted me to do and when I finally figured it out he was already angry at me and he finally got the first cuff on my right wrist but was struggling to get the other one on and I moved my arms closer to make it easier for him but that didn’t work and just seemed to make it harder for him and he got even angrier and the first cuff was already bruising and cutting into my right wrist and I couldn’t help but move it now to make it more comfortable for me which really made him angry and so there was more pulling of my arms and finally he turned me back around and shouted at me to stop fucking this up and then he turned me around and then I didn’t know what I was doing but making all sorts of movements and then no movement and finally he got both cuffs on and I could feel them squeezing and the left one was cutting into my wrist and he started to drag me somewhere but I had no idea where we were going and I didn’t dare move my wrists anymore and just kept trying to keep up with him and those cuffs digging in and just cutting me all the more and I realized that I had a long way to go to figure out prison.
Up Next on White Collar Journal:
Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform
Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections
Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison
If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.
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