Time keeps on slippin...

There is a common misperception that prisoners have nothing but time on their hands, that they are handed everything for free. In fact when a convicted person is sentenced it is called being given time. The girls ask, How much time to you get? Then the comparison starts of who got screwed and who got lucky. On October 31, 1995, I found myself sitting in a dirty beige room. A wood enclosed Bench at the head of the room. Two more desks sat in front of the judge’s bench. Ten feet in front of that were two regular wood tables one to the left, the defendants table and one to the right the prosecutors table. Further to the right was the now empty jury’s box. The jury of my peers (the youngest being 49) is gone to sleep at home instead of the cozy box. To my left is another desk that is the bailiffs, from here he keeps a watchful eye on me and my family. A railing runs across the room behind me. Behind that the room is nothing but rows of chairs and a giant eagle hung up on the wall like the sentry of all that is good and holy. On this day the honorable judge Wayne Westover, dressed in his black robe was handing down my sentence.

God Who?

God skipped the first twenty or so years of my life. How can he of been present when My mother chose to kill herself. Where was he when I was being beaten to a bloody pulp. Where was he when Tom started touching me. Where was this all knowing all powerful lover and protector of my soul when tornado dad was beating me down physically, mentally, emotionally. Where was God when all the kids at school hated me choosing to spend their lunch hours chasing me around the play ground trying to jump me. Where was God when I heeded my dad’s yelled directive to get the fuck out because I had a boyfriend. The first I had brought home up to that time. Where was good when I made the decision to plan and carry out the attempted murder of an innocent woman I liked. Where was God in this deep pit I have found myself in. This tiny room with one window if you could call it that. About 6 inches wide and two feet in length. Covered in a dirty yellow grate that allowed a modicum of sun in, but to see out I had to put my eye up to the dirty grate peering through one of the holes that punctured the protective covering. How many hours I have sat on my bed a hard metal bunk with a slim 1 inch plastic mattress placed upon that. Covered in threadbare sheets and scratchy dark wool blankets. The grumbly toilet less than a foot from the edge of the bed; the sink and mirror a foot from that and the door a foot from that. I laugh to myself at all the old tv shows I saw where the prison paced back and forth as a way to manage there time, yet that is not a reality here. In one possible two if you take small steps you reach the other side. Able to touch one side of the room with your left hand and the other side of the room with your right. How did I end up here? What the fuck?