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This is actually 2 different posts but I recieved them at the same time 2/7/12 & 2/9/12

Tags: prison

   The 3 things people get sent back to Prison for, according to parole officers, are drugs, alcohol, and women. That's the gospel truth. For me it was a combination of those elements. It's easy to look back and see every wrong turn I made, but I was blind and in the moment. Let me offer some unsolicited advice to anyone whos ever been in jail or prison and doesn't want to go back-CHOOSE YOUR MATE CAREFULLY. Noone knows what losing liberty is like unless they've been here, and if your significant other doesn't help protect your freedom, they just don't really care about you, Jack.
   At the beginning of my sentence, I didn't understand what a decade entails, how long ten years actually is. Out of ignorance I was fearless. It rolled off my back. Now I'm intimately aware of what a sentence like that means. If I knew back then what I know today I wouldn't have been so smug. This time is nothing to laugh at.
   It's not the living conditions or the violence that stand out for me, it's the feelings you get late at night, you've already done a couple years, and you're looking into the future, knowing that for years to come you will be confined inside a penitentiary. Instead of going to sleep with a pretty girl curled up on you there's another tattooed criminal on the top bunk snoring, farting and sharing a tiny space...For Years. It's a fucking nightmare.
   Dealing with it takes endurance. Staying hard on the yard gets old man, there's lots of mental discipline involved. Monitering your thoughts, not thinking too much about the world outside, but still having goals & ambitions, never accepting prison, never allowing it to become home. This is no easy feat.
   "Do your time, don't let it do you."One of the best chaingang cliches. How can a prisoner make their time work for them?
   Step one, stop thinking about your girlfriend. That's the wrong way to do it if you wnt to keep your head up and your time flowing. I don't care how deep y'alls relationship is, if you're married, have kids, whatever. She's out there. You're incarcerated. Don't torture yourself wondering if she's out there fucking somebody else, be a bigger man than that. In GA there are no conjugal visits, so clearly y'all aren't having sex. If she got in trouble and you were free, would you be celibate until her release? Don't tell that lie. If she writes, visits, puts some change on your books, accepts your calls, then she is keeping it real with you. Let her live man. Dudes make a bad time worse tripping about their significant other, It's a common mistake. A rookie move.
   There I go talking hard, but I admit, I let a woman completely fuck my head up once. At the root of that was an insecure desire for validation. She picked me up when I was down, boosted my already overinflated ego, and did alot to make my time sweeter. Losing that boost knocked me down for a few days until I shrugged it off and realised that being dependant on another person for emotional reasons is a setup for a major letdown.
   In my defense, this girl went to the earth to show me love, took serious risks to help me make money, basically did everything to keep it 100 with me. She should be touring the nation teaching a seminar called "How To Be A Rider For Your Man While He's In Prison". She's got that down to a science. I'm eternally grateful for all she did. Only a fool would hold a grudge against a girl who drove 4 hours each way to visit, came up there looking right, payed the police to bring the work in, payed my cellphone bill( He had an Iphone before anyone I knew did when they came out-Ed), went to western union to pick up money transfers, the whole nine. I had it made thanks to her devotion. She was down. NO HARD FEELINGS AT ALL.
   So once you can master the mental balance of looking forward to freedom without aching for it, there has to be some kind of daily routine that keeps you moving forward. I put myself into a militant state of mind, believing myself to be behind enemy lines for the entire stay of my incarceration. How can I build and improve while I'm here? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or atleast it can if you man up and turn a negative into a positive. For me, that means alot of reading, exercise, and becoming a student of human nature. Prison is full of liars and master manipulators, game is coming at you 24/7. Just being observant will sharpen your sword mentally.
   It's like defensive driving, I'm constantly thinking for the next man because he might not know how to think for himself. If I'm not on point, avoiding landmines, defusing potential timebombs, then I'd be fighting everyday in here. Your fight game is way less important than your mind game. but you better be able to fight a little bit or atleast willing to try.
   I'm grateful to have survived prison, this is the most treacherous enviroment on earth. Just knowing that anyone can get fucked up in here, it kind of quiets you down. The fool walking around with his chest puffed out, roaring like a lion, He's usually due for a serious day of reckoning. That loud mouth bullshit, trying to run the dorm, free picking the weak, being a bully, it doesn't get respect, and one day a real G will pull that card. Again, it comes down to a balance, you want to be respected but not feared. Nobody is such a badass they can't get hurt, maimed or killed in here. Only an idiot ignores that and they're usually in the middle of thumping their chest and woofing when someone puts a knife in their neck. Bye-Bye badass, hello wounded inmate, hello puddle of blood, hello newfound humility. That's the way it goes.
   I was blessed with enough intelligence to know my limitations. I never thought I was a hog and always had the ability to rate myself accurately. On top of that I have a pretty good heart, never try to throw my weight around, despise those who prey on the weak, and look for a peaceful solution whenever possible. I didn't look for trouble and did what it took to stay respected. Having that respect is mandatory. You gotta maintain a reputation as a stand up guy. Convicts are like sharks, weakness is like blood, a weak motherfucker is a pussy and pussies get fucked. Getting fucked has always sounded disagreeable to me so I stood up for myself. Best decision an incarcerated man could ever make.
   I got my ass beat more than a few times. I know what it's like to struggle with a bologna sandwich with a cracked jaw. I've been jumped & stomped into the floor, stabbed in the face,and beaten with masterlocks tied to belts. I payed the price to be respected in my first few years when I was smaller and less experienced, that respect came from a willingness to basically get my ass handed to me. But I was willing to fight. You win some, you lose some.
   I had some moments in the sun too, knocked some people out, beat some ass, busted some heads, whatever. Through the process of incarceration I learned alot about myself and violence and I matured into a peaceful man. I know how to get down for mine but I also know how to forgive. Most sane people prefer to get along if they can.

(End of first entry. Below is the second-Ed)

   Throughout my journey in corrections much of what I encountered was opposite ends of the spectrum. I met the realest & the best, men whom I'm deeply honored to call friends, men who helped to inspire and motivate me. Incredible people. The most die-hard, loyal, courageous men you'd ever want to meet, dudes who have so much heart who run from noone. The realest and the best. Not to put a YO! Mtv Raps spin on it but I'm talking about gangsterfied individuals. As this blog goes on I'll highlight some of them. Alot of them know who they are.
   As for the opposite end, there are men in prison who barely merit being called men, or even human. Total garbage. Slithery black hearted vermin. Hate-filled, cowardly pack animals. Snitches, rats, snakes, just bitch assed dudes. In most enviroments, it's the people who make it a miserable experience or a positive one and this class of losers I refer to here could fuck up a wet dream tosay the least.
   The living conditions breed alot of discontent and violence. It really is like a bunch of sharks in a tank, and there we are, staring each other down all day. Overcrowded, under-stimulated, sexually repressed, and full of testosterone. By the very nature of the enviroment, it's a bloody mess waiting to happen.
   There's plenty middle-of-the-spectrum, mediocre cats in the chaingang aswell. Keep in mind that prison is a repository for the homeless, mentally deficient, and hopelessly drug addicted. So you come across the stereotypical meth users with a mouth full of fucked up teeth, the trailerpark rejects, the good-hearted downtown atlanta crackheads, and the good ol' boys. Some of them are real characters, funny to observe in action. Filler for the prison system. It's sad that these people are so inept or addicted that society can't find a position for them or role they can play and be alright in the world. I guess the republican view would encourage us to believe that it's all their fault, survival of the fittest, if they can't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps then too bad, prison is the place for them. That's an easy opinion to have when you were born with above average intelligence, good role models, and a safe neighborhood to grow up in. I had all of that, but I still don't believe these kind of people belong in prison, Many times it IS societies fault. So what's my excuse? I had lots of advantages, what brought me to this place to begin with? Why am I continuing to come back? That's a vital question, maybe a little background info for those who don't know me.
   I was born in 1983, the first son of J### & G####### R#########. Two years later my younger brother B#### came along. We also have an older brother,C####, from my fathers first marriage. Sadly, we didn't see much of him in our youth since we lived in different cities. My sainted mother is a brazilian woman ten years my fathers junior. My dad was a successful chemical engineer, overachiever, workaholic type. My mother stayed at home and raised us until we were getting to be middle school age. We were well nurtured, protected without being sheltered, involved in sports, and encouraged in every way. I do not have a degree of any kind and am not qualified to analyze my childhood but the picture I'm trying to paint is of a safe, comfortably middle-class background in a good school district. Growing up in a home with educated parents who loved eachother, didn't use drugs or get drunk, didn't go to jail, didn't scream and fight and hit eachother. No sexual or physical abuse. None of the classic red flags, no alarms, no clues as to why I'm back in jail on my third parole violation since my release in 2009. It would seem I am where I am in life strictly as a result of my own poor choices. I could of been a lawyer, maybe a college professor, whatever. I somehow managed to squander these advantages, take a life full of promise and possibilities and repeatedly smash it into slivers of what it could have been. I'm like a man who's standing at an open window with my dick hanging out and over& over & over, I'm slamming that window down on my poor beat up penis. To look at my background you'd think I would've grown up to be a porn star. Why did I choose the window? What the fuck am I doing in prison? I still don't know, but based on my results in life so far, I'm good at being incarcerated and have not yet managed to shift that energy into being good at freedom. In the window metaphor, my dick is my life and I;ve smashed it the fuck up. Peace.



This post first appeared on FREE RIGGIE!, please read the originial post: here

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This is actually 2 different posts but I recieved them at the same time 2/7/12 & 2/9/12

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