On February 20, 1965, I accidentally shot my brother JJ. I say accidentally now, but for many years I would say, “I killed my brother.” 

From the first day of my incarceration, I believed I was undeserving of love, family, and community. I was filled with anger, hurt, and shame, frightened that other inmates would know what I had done. It took me over 50 years to make sense of the day I killed my brother.

It was JJ’s birthday. He was turning six and I was a year older. We woke up that morning talking about all the fun we knew we were going to have. JJ was my best friend. He followed me around and I loved that, like a baby duckling following his mother. I’d answer all of his questions and share with him everything I learned.

That morning, I remembered seeing a small handgun under my mother’s bed. While she was asleep, I crawled under her bed, JJ right behind me. I grabbed the gun and we crawled back to our room. I knew the gun was real. It was heavy and I saw bullets inside. 

“Pull the trigger,” I heard.   

I shot. A bullet went into my brother’s stomach. So much commotion ensued. My mother and older siblings came running into the bedroom; the smell of smoke was in the air; my ears were ringing; every sound muffled. 

Then came the ambulance and police. They asked me what had happened. I told them my brother crawled under the bed and grabbed the gun. I said he began spinning the gun around his finger like a cowboy in the movies and the gun went off. I totally lied about what happened and for many years I kept isolated from family and everyone. I was depressed and ashamed. No one in the family would talk about JJ’s death.

I loved my brother. It wasn’t until I came to prison did I have the courage to allow myself to be vulnerable and speak about JJ’s death. While I was in county jail my mother and I talked about JJ’s death for the first time. She told me she knew.  She said after JJ was shot, before he died, he told her I was the one who got the gun and shot him.  He told her before he died he wasn’t mad at me. I was overwhelmed with grief. I cried from the guilt and hurt I carried.

Talking with my mother opened the door for a lot of family healing.

I was able to truthfully tell my siblings and my children what happened that morning so many years ago. I told my children how important it is to talk and not keep feelings of shame and guilt inside. I had lived with a horrific lie, long after the truth of JJ’s death had already been revealed.

Every year on my brother’s birthday I take the time to reflect and pay tribute to his life. I’m continually comforted by his last words. He wasn’t mad at me. JJ forgave me.  

My dad told me that time is something I’ll never get back, so I should do with it what matters.

My whole life, most of the things I have done had negative results. I thought I had to be an invented character of who I was supposed to be. It was my life’s work. Instead of focusing on what was best for me, I fought people, protected my family, myself and lived for the amusement of others. I told myself it was to justify my behavior. I convinced myself that it was okay to knock out someone’s teeth for picking on me. I told myself that violence was necessary for my survival, it was expected of me if I wanted to survive. I made myself believe that it was necessary to steal and attack, so long as I got what I needed and I was seen as useful. All of this, the violence and the crime, all of it was for nothing. All those things got me in trouble. Now I’m spending my life in prison for trying to be someone I am not.

When I was first locked up, I was very very angry, mostly because of shame and fear. I was ashamed of my upbringing in the gutter of the ghetto and afraid of bullies all around me. I had no real outlet for my anger except drawing and writing. My parents accused me of always living in my own little world, ignoring reality.

After my arrest, I spent a lot of time writing, drawing, and trying to sleep in an attempt to ignore my dire circumstance: facing a third strike, the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison. I only marginally cared, mind you, figuring I would not be much use to anyone behind prison walls. In all honesty, I didn’t care if I died in prison, but for the sake of those I knew and loved. In prison, I got a card from my mom and some money. It helped me live. I started writing again because my head hurt with so many stories and rhymes. I suppose I wanted to get as much of my writing out as I could before something happened where I couldn’t. I hope that someone can maybe collect the money from selling my books and I can be useful. I had no idea how much venting I did when I wrote. I wrote stories about outcasts and antiheroes and violent vigilantes and wanton destruction. I wrote about dangerous animals and hideous aliens and inconsolable monsters. I built so many worlds….

After a few years of introspection, I realized a few things: I am still a very angry person, I still see the world around me as a dangerously frightening place, and  there is still a chance I can die in prison. Of course, I continued writing, but I realized that my writing is a direct reflection of my mindstate. As I attended college and self-help groups, I wrote about my despair in getting beaten and left to bleed on the street. I wrote about being accused of cheating on tests and getting suspended for defending myself. I learned more about the school to prison pipeline as I navigated being bullied by correctional officers for trying to help people pass the GED, and got into trouble here at the Robert E. Burton Adult School in San Quentin for encouraging people not to ‘Grandfathered out’ of school, meaning the student is phased out because they have been convinced by their teacher that they are incapable of learning. I wrote tips on teaching algebra and writing essays and critical thinking. I wrote lesson plans on how to help adult students have a hand in their own education. I still write about these things, and as you can imagine, these topics are not very popular. So I find myself bullied all over again. I am ashamed of my inability to be a stronger advocate for education, and I am afraid of what will happen if I stop, so this makes me very angry still. I have terrible nightmares I put on paper, and maudlin feelings I place in my rhymes.

To look at me, some people think I have it all together. My writing is like a pressure release valve on my negative feelings, so my optimism and willingness to help is in the forefront of my brain. But the shame and fear lurks in the shadows of my thoughts, waiting for their chance to strike me down again. I fight them, I do what I can where I can to help as many students and write about the rest. I write essays and articles about teachers & administrators who care about how students test and stall out on the GED by missing a point here and there.

This awakened a new anger in me, born of a frustration at seeing the intentional roadblocks against students earning their GED. it brought me all the way back to my own schooling, jaded teachers, arrogance. Refusing any and all help to reach their students. This compounded in prison; a discussion about academic dishonesty can lead to administrative segregation or worse. I stay up late nights scratching out ideas that help students overcome these obstacles, and spend my days encouraging them so they will excel. There are teachers who refuse to speak to me since joining the Peer Literacy Mentor Program and APEP, for their precious egos cannot withstand a cannonade of truth from yours truly, so I write about that as well. Then COVID-19 hit.

Nowadays, I spend upwards of 15 out of 24 hours a day reading, writing and studying. Work continues. I send lesson plans via correspondence and tutor students as I see them and write harrowing tales of derring-do. I write papers about art and activism, and I write poetry about the same and it’s personal connection to my heart and mind. I write articles about others through the lense of the incarcerated being treated as the source of the deadly pathogen responsible for shelter in place mandates, from the point of view of someone who knew about social distancing before the term became synonymous with the physical distancing required to remain safe from infection. I write about that stuff, too. With all this time down, hours upon hours in my cell, I figured out the true source of my anger and frustration, my shame and fear: Inadequacy. I have never been enough. Ever. I’ve never been enough for my family. I’ve never been enough for those I thought were my friends. I’ve never been enough for my students. Most of all, I’ve never been enough for me. In my imagination, there are stories of hotshot pilots and powerful wizards and genius scientists and stalwart warriors and steadfast missionaries and unshakeable ship’s captains with their crews. There are stories of people who harness the elements for justice and even a sun in human form out to balance the cosmos. All the things I am not. When I write, I can be these people. I get to exercise their powers and explore parts of me normally reserved for roleplaying games, which are no longer an option thanks to physical distancing. I also get to see the negative sides of me. I get to explore my penchant to rely on violence when talking and compromise fail. I get to think of what it means to be a mastermind, and how to shut down nefarious plots with a little bravery and ingenuity. So this inadequacy was stifling for me, and the deeper source of my shame and fear. I am afraid I’ll never be enough to help make a change in this world, and I am ashamed of that failing. These feelings still lurk deep inside, where my darkest pain stabs at me every day of my existence. However, I make myself remember I have one freedom no one can take away: the freedom to choose.

Therefore, I choose to turn my feelings of inadequacy into a quest for perfection. My sense of inadequacy is why I work so hard and, according to a proverb I read recently, “In all labor, there is gain, but mere talk leads to poverty.” My sense of inadequacy pushes me to be better at everything I try to do. And, as much as I hate to give prison any credit for anything except the enslavement of humanity, I would never have learned that if I had been killed when I was arrested. This may sound like I am okay with not being enough. I’m not, now my goal is to be more than enough. I aim to inspire others to work hard despite their own feelings of inadequacy.

Prison sucks. I hate it; hate its necessity. However, during all this time I have learned many valuable lessons; the lesson of choice and choosing to turn from my feelings of inadequacy to seek perfection, that help me keep moving forward.

I’m not a violent criminal or anything like that anymore.

I’m a nerd.

I read books.

I like school.

I like role-playing games and writing stories and spending time playing with my imagination.

I can be me and it’s okay to be me.

This was an incredible discovery for me. I hate that it took my 14 years to get fully comfortable with me. Struggling and pushing through all the feelings of shame, fear, anger to reach my sense of inadequacy. I still struggle with relationships here in San Quentin, my usefulness dictates the value of the relationship. But with my new found self-esteem, I realize these interactions faster and whether or not such relationships are worth pursuing. In the past, I endured misuse and abuse in order to get the interaction I craved. I looked at my life as being without value, and, since my life meant nothing to me, whatever crimes I committed for my survival beyond food and shelter were done to be useful to others, content to let me take the fall for their ambition.

Now that so much time has passed inside, and realizations made, my life has meaning. I have value because I do match who I am. I work carefully at making good decisions in my life. I work hard to live my life with purpose, that’s part of who I am and it ties right in with my pursuit to overcome my feelings of inadequacies.

On lockdown during COVID, it’s hard to reach my students and friends, so I focus on my writing. I am a recovering claustrophobic, who enjoys people, but can’t visit them in here which could lead to the looming fear of progressive discipline. If I get caught by a correctional officer it would be used against me. My first parole hearing is coming up on New Year’s eve, so I don’t need that kind of trouble. I focus on long term beneficial solitary activities that will promote inner growth, like storyteller, being a poet and a student. Now, my reputation matches my character, who I really am. Even if I’m behind these walls.

There is one lesson I have learned with all the years while being in prison, more important than any other I have found, more important than feeling inadequate, the biggest and best lesson: It’s ok to be me.

 

 

Salvation.  Allah.  Unity.

I know it feels like the world turned its back

And you live your life under constant attack,

But this pain is just another setback

On the path of life where mad schemes hatch…

It’s okay to uprock and love to rap,

To paint murals and scratch for those who got clapped

And that’s no cap. It’s okay to use your brain.

It’s okay to love fiction and play games.

It’s okay to mix proper English with slang,

Nevermind the ridicule and the shame.

It’s okay that you’re not the same;

If others don’t like you, you are not to blame…

The world is your personal playground:

Climb life’s jungle gym when opportunity slides down.

Wear your self-esteem like a crown

And turn beatdowns to beats and sounds.

Express yourself when you’re lost so you get found

With both feet on the ground shouting “What Now?!”

It’s okay to stand up and use your voice,

Even if you find your name on a prison invoice.

Be you. Don’t take your life and compare

It to others who don’t even care…

Recognize your blessing and forge weapons

Of reason for hunting seasons. No half-steppin!

Confidence in your life choices, no second-guessing;

You’ll soon be in classrooms giving lessons.

Don’t let your anger cloud your judgement

Or let heartbreak make your soul plummet…

You are the Human Sun, unpredictable at best.

Incinerate preconceived notions and bring it to their chest.

Know you are amongst those highly blessed.

It’s okay to be who you are, nevermind the rest…

-Mesro, the Human Sun

“It’s okay”

I came into the world one early Texas morning, in 1953 to Gary and Shirley. Shortly after my birth my mother died, murdered by her lover. My father had a hard time getting over her death, and in 1957 he committed suicide. I was four. With no brothers or sisters and no extended relatives to care for me, I became a ward of the state.

Many of the foster families I lived with took me in for the monthly social security payment of $200; it was hard times for colored people back then in the Jim Crow South. In foster care I found little emotional warmth; I didn’t have new clothes or enough to eat, and I was a victim of verbal and physical abuse by other foster children and by caretakers. I was beaten repeatedly with no clothes on. I felt lonely, neglected, isolated, unwanted, and very angry. I ran away, but after a few days I would always be caught by city police.

In 1961, at eight years old, I was placed in a foster home with a mean, selfish little girl of ten or eleven. She didn’t like little boys very much; she certainly didn’t like me. There was a wood-burning stove in the middle of the house, and one day she called me over and placed my left arm on it. The heat left a third-degree burn. From then on I became very angry at girls and women alike. I became evil-minded and withdrawn, but also troubled and hurt and sad, wishing I’d been treated more fairly. I went to the city jail that year for stealing food from the kitchen while the others were sleeping.

That next winter, at nine years old and in another foster home, two other kids and I, alone in the house, made a fire in the closet to keep warm. The clothing caught fire; I tried to put it out but the house burned down. That family sent me back to child services. I was alienated, distant and unhappy and blue—I didn’t know how to recognize my feelings, much less express them. I couldn’t establish an emotional connection with my foster families, folks I would have liked to have as my own parents. The ones who had begotten me were dead!

At ten, in another foster home, I met kids who were just like me: scared, afraid, terrified. Seeing the things they did without thinking made me feel like there was nothing wrong with me, so I took to them like glue to paper. I began stealing things without any regard for the rights or permission of others. I stole televisions, radios, gold coins—all kinds of petty theft with two other kids from the neighborhood. I felt it wasn’t right, but I did it anyway.

Still unable to communicate my emotions, I was taken into legal custody for stealing. I was eleven. After a few months in jail, surrounded by a multitude of young criminals like me, I walked out without having learned anything. I felt unimportant; I wanted to be left to myself. I felt insecure, suspicious, and jittery. I felt misunderstood. I would go to school sometimes, but it didn’t do much for me. I have a specific memory from elementary school. My kindergarten teacher had made fun of me; The same these followed me into high school. I felt put down, rejected, unappreciated, unwanted. I didn’t look like the other kids. I was bitter and violent, irrational and unemotional.

At 13, I began stealing cars. I also began using alcohol, marijuana, prescription drugs, and PCP. By 15, I was carrying a gun. I had to fight throughout my childhood to protect myself. So much trauma had built up over the years, and that lifestyle was a vehicle to escape my unresolved issues.

California was going to be my answer, at 19 I was looking for meaning and awareness and mostly  I wanted to feel alive. Shortly thereafter, I was convicted of theft and began using drugs again. I had a good run for 12 years, working off and on before I went to prison. I had a multitude of jobs from janitor to hospital aide to parking attendant to custodian and even a cook. In 1975, Sandra and I married for 13 years, until I went to prison at the age 34. Our marriage ended in divorced a few years after my arrest. After that I entered into three common-law stable marriages in a row.  But the voices inside me always found a way to come back, attacking me for every flaw and imperfection, like a pathological critic who made me feel wrong. Rather than being truthful about them, I hid them as best I could. If I admitted I was frightened, I thought, people would just pick me to pieces. I had a burning hatred inside for everyone and anyone. People told me they saw me as a monster.

I couldn’t imagine how messed up I was inside. As a kid I was diagnosed as schizophrenic with multiple personalities; I struggled with the “demons” in my mind for some time. I was in denial for years. The insanity went on for years too. I lost my way in life; I couldn’t see or fix what I had become. My addiction took me to a place of darkness, like jails and now prison. I couldn’t even cry for the pain and hurt and suffering I felt; the drugs controlled my life. Opiates, crack cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, PCP, prescription medicine, and more.

All addictions serve to block pain, offering a short-term feeling of control and well-being. Where has my control gotten me? I’ve been like a runaway freight train, destroying everything and everyone in my path. I once thought that addiction was easier to feel than fear, or hurt, or guilt, or emptiness. I never got to deal with those feelings themselves, never got to address the problems that generated my self-inflicted pain, misery, loneliness, and shame. Poor choices lead to a sense of worthlessness: in this life you reap what you plant.

After many years, I learned it was worthless blaming others for my pain. I made bad choices my entire life, and I let recklessness dominate my common sense. For all of that, I am extremely sorry!

Today, I’m glad to surrender my will and life, my innermost being, to God’s care. God is my only hope for restoration.

Today I’m in good health and ready to proceed with life. I take medication. I ignore the demons in my mind. I am someone who has learned to care about life once again, and I wait for the day I can be a productive citizen and give back to the community I harmed so much. I am positive that with daily medication I can have a normal life.

You can tell how much a person really loves you by all of the headaches they go through for you. My mother has gone through hell because of me.

There were times when I wanted to give up on life. But the thought of what my mother would feel if I did, if I gave up on life, stopped me every single time. When I was locked up at the age of 14, I did not know how serious my situation really was. Then I turned 16,  and walked into a maximum security prison. Now I am a 34-year-old man.

When I was younger, my sisters told me that every day my mother would go into the bathroom and cry. She cried because her baby boy had been taken from her. I knew from that moment on that I couldn’t be the one to kill my mother by taking my own life.

So now when I am called to the prison’s visiting room to see my mother, I smile and give her a hug. It doesn’t matter what I’m going through or feeling at the time. I know that if she sees me being strong, then she too will start to feel strong.

And from there I can sow these seeds into my community,  to Aid in the nourishment of the garden like Souls of others and I have no responsibility to make them Sprout, grow or Blossom. Deep care for the humanity and worth of others had dried up and become unfertile  on the Garden journey of my life. Thank God for my gardeners.

I don’t think that empathy needs to be taught, but awakened in each of us. I believe that in large part, we from childhood are caring, loving and yes empathetic. It’s easy as a child.  However, when are naturally empathetic nature is met with ridicule, rejection, judgment, even rebuffing, the vulnerability that allows empathy to be an interface true connection becomes almost impenetrable. therefore we learn to be extremely measured in our expression of empathy, if we continue to express it at all. And it’s not an act of not caring, but an active self protection from the effects of it having been rejected, a  warped sense of self-care because of the trauma, i.e. when people don’t care that you are, and take advantage of the fact that you care…Why care?

or even show that you care. Over time our sensitivities to other’s pain  dolls in us and sometimes even dies. This highlights that if you don’t use it you lose it Theory. And in today’s climate of selfies, socially non-social media  and individual tribalism, we are a species becoming the antithesis of our true selves. Which is strange when the core desire of our hearts is connection. (one of the strongest mantras that came out of the horror of this pandemic is that we’re in this together. We have always been and  we always will be.)  Again I digress.

Memories of the rejection I had experienced on my journey, I internalized, and I told myself a story about myself and my worth in light of the experience. And the false narrative kept me from feeling safe enough to continue to be empathetic. To quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Every person is  a Soul Garden, therefore, sow the seed, embrace the process and await the harvest. From a garden perhaps unfamiliar, yet so very sustaining beautiful. I did.

Now, I can say with pride who I am.

But now I can say with pride who I am.

I am a black man.

I am a son, a brother, a friend.

I am an athlete, a musician, and a journalist.

I am a man that has many workable skills.

I am a God fearing man.

I am honest, and I have compassion for others.

I am in touch with my emotions.

I can say with my head held high, that I am a feminist. I love my mother, my sisters and all women, to ever threaten them would be to threaten God’s greatest gift bestowed upon this earth. I know who I am now. Though I am still incarcerated, the battle that started at 14,  is still present. Today it’s not looked at as a battle, but a journey. Please read Terry’s poem below:

“The Chance”

As I sit in my dog kennel of a cell

I reflect on my life

Shaking my head in discuss

As I cover my face

To know that

I’ve been down since the age of 14

A crime that I committed

For a misunderstanding

Uneducated, ignorant, simple minded,

And plain immature

A whole lot of understanding

Of nurturing

Was the cause of my dealings

Living in a land

Where they still hate each other

For the color of my skin,

For my sex,

For my beliefs,

And for my political standings.

For I am a man

I say

Do I have a chance?

I want a chance

But to keep it real,

I have no chance.

For if the land that I live in 

Is imprisoned with it’s hate

Then I don’t even stand a chance

Because we won’t even 

Give each other 

A chance.

It’s amazing to me that from those early established penal institutions,that somehow the spirit of penitence has sustained itself or rather maintained, and remained. In spite of such a pervasive western philosophy of revenge, not rehabilitation that has been heralded by so many of the patriarchal powers that be. Maintained not from the traditionally religious, but from the Earth’s caretakers, and those from behind the walls. I speak of San Quentin in particular since it has been my Monastery of sorts, where so many self awareness programs have been brought into us by those who yet care and have labored in these seemingly unfruitful Gardens of hopeful penitence. With seeds meant to grow the true awareness Of the authentic self, how to forgive oneself while taking accountability, mindfulness, what it means to be a healthy Community, selflessness, love, compassion, and empathy.

I liken this labor as a long forgotten plot of land in a city that’s been fenced off. No access. It’s an eyesore in the center of the booming metropolis. Someone stumbles upon this plot of land that is dry and rocky. There are weeds everywhere and trash has been thrown over the fence. Cats, dogs, even rats are disappointed in their search for sustenance in this barren place. Yet for some there is no ugliness, just potential. Potential for new life. The process from desire to see life in that barren place is a mess. The breaking up of the soil, the pulling up of weeds, removal of rocks and trash. The chasing off of the rats. And not the least of the challenges being the enlisting of the help of other like-minded folks to Aid one in this hopeful Endeavor to bring forth life anew. Tilling, watering, fertilizing and of course letting the soil rest… and you as well. All in preparation of the sowing season, and hopeful expectation of the coming harvest. I am that soil.

Empathy was a hard concept for me to receive initially, since I had become such a selfish shallow type of man. I mean it was / is all about me right? Self-protection? Right. It is about me, yet no longer from a selfish place. But from a place of gratitude that someone(s) saw in me  that which I could not see in myself. and unlike my history of being left for dead… Metaphorically, these ones stayed and stood with me. My connections are no longer parasitic, but hopefully mutually giving and therapeutic.

I recognize that validations and affirmation of my value and worth have to be recognized from within. All alone I am enough.

And from there I can sow these seeds into my community,  to Aid in the nourishment of the garden like Souls of others and I have no responsibility to make them Sprout, grow or Blossom. Deep care for the humanity and worth of others had dried up and become unfertile  on the Garden journey of my life. Thank God for my gardeners.

I don’t think that empathy needs to be taught, but awakened in each of us. I believe that in large part, we from childhood are caring, loving and yes empathetic. It’s easy as a child.  However, when are naturally empathetic nature is met with ridicule, rejection, judgment, even rebuffing, the vulnerability that allows empathy to be an interface true connection becomes almost impenetrable. therefore we learn to be extremely measured in our expression of empathy, if we continue to express it at all. And it’s not an act of not caring, but an active self protection from the effects of it having been rejected, a  warped sense of self-care because of the trauma, i.e. when people don’t care that you are, and take advantage of the fact that you care…Why care?

or even show that you care. Over time our sensitivities to other’s pain  dolls in us and sometimes even dies. This highlights that if you don’t use it you lose it Theory. And in today’s climate of selfies, socially non-social media  and individual tribalism, we are a species becoming the antithesis of our true selves. Which is strange when the core desire of our hearts is connection. (one of the strongest mantras that came out of the horror of this pandemic is that we’re in this together. We have always been and  we always will be.)  Again I digress.

Memories of the rejection I had experienced on my journey, I internalized, and I told myself a story about myself and my worth in light of the experience. And the false narrative kept me from feeling safe enough to continue to be empathetic. To quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Every person is  a Soul Garden, therefore, sow the seed, embrace the process and await the harvest. From a garden perhaps unfamiliar, yet so very sustaining beautiful. I did.