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How do I compete with $365 billion a year to stay inside here?

It’s like the revenue is embedded in youth, and now I’m afraid. No, let’s tell the truth—the cards are so faded. I can’t tell the suite anything to say. I look the other way, so the boat stays afloat, and day after day, the man gets his pay because felons like me still don’t vote. I was a junkie on a mat behind an abandoned building, but I’m no longer that because they keep me inside an abandoned building, and I have a better mat, and as I write, my wounds are healing, and I’m only stating facts.

Maybe I should be grateful, you know? For the change of label, but I’m not. Just oppressed, buried alive, and expected to grow under a rock. Inside a piece of hell, my little prison cell today, because it rained and I pressed my nose against the seal of the windowpane. But I can’t come out, and it can’t come in. I long to smell the rain and maybe feel the wind. Then I pick the Bible up and put it down again. It’s such a sad story, and I know the END.

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Every month, a physical envelope arrives at your door, postmarked from San Quentin Village, California. Inside, you will find original artwork, writing, and recipes from real contributors, along with a personal letter from me, Diane Kahn, founder of Humans of San Quentin, about the people who made them. You read it. You keep it.

Every piece comes from someone serving a sentence. Every piece reminds you they are so much more than that.

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