GOD, I can’t sleep. The TV was shut off at 10 and we don’t get any say about it. Now it’s just me and You and these guys and silence. Silence. The halls echo, even in the quiet. I can hear the guards walking around, clearing their throats, the jingle of their keys not opening our cell. They don’t care that I can’t sleep. Why would they? Despite all the echoing and racquet, it’s so quiet. I don’t know these guys in my room and I don’t know the guy in the bunk below me and I don’t want to know them. Good Lord, I just want to fall asleep. I’ve been nervous, anxious, disappointed, scared and alone all day and now I just want to close my eyes and fall asleep.
The bed isn’t mine. The smell of the room isn’t mine. The creeks and cracks of the building aren’t mine. It doesn’t just feel like jail, it-feels-like-jail.
Just lay here.
Calm down.
Jesus Christ, my eyes are shut but my mind is going a hundred miles per hour, would you mind helping me here?
I’m just going to keep them shut. Lay in the black that comes from keeping them shut. I get it, God, damn it, I get it. You don’t approve of my choices. Well neither do I, ah-ite? You want to hear me say it, you want to break me down, alright, I’m afraid.
If I sit here and do the time, will I have redeemed myself to you? How about I don’t sleep a wink? Will that be enough punishment? Even more, I’m afraid to step into the shower. Right now, one of my fears is taking a shower tomorrow morning in the shower room. The COMMUNITY shower room that has no doors, or curtains to separate anyone. We all get to dangle freely in front of each other and it seems humiliating. So, why don’t I just not sleep a wink and not shower. For 60 straight days. Would that be enough payment? Let me tell you how wonderful it is to find out that a page of my destiny include 60 days of no sleep and no shower, in a jail cell, in Wisconsin. Thanks. You’re really looking out for me aren’t you? Jesus H, I’m so pissed off at you right now, but still I pray to you. Still I want to fall asleep in your presence. Still I look for your approval. I want you to be pleased with me and I have no idea how to do that. I want to fall asleep in a dialogue with you because it’s the only way I feel protected. I look to you for the comfort that only my mom can provide.
It’s eerily quiet. I don’t like it. Everytime a guard walks by the door I look. I look because I’m hoping they’ll notice me and see I’m sad but they never do. I don’t know what I would expect them to do anyway. Sneak me a candy bar? Play cards for smokes, wha?
There is no way I can let my family come to see me. There’s just no way.
This mattress blows. It’s, first of all, not mine. I would never in a million years pick this mattress out. Not even for a one-night stay in the boundary waters. It’s too thin, it offers zero comfortability this pillow is a disgrace to pillows, this blanket couldn’t cover a baby, look, look - it doesn’t even stay tucked under the mattress. It’ll be around my neck before my eyes shut which is actually a nice thought because I’m nowhere near falling asleep anyway.
Not one of those nights, not one of those drinks were worth it.
Please stay with me tonight. Please don’t go. Just stay until I fall asleep.
I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Who even cares? We’ll get breakfast at least.
This is not where my parents dreamed for me to be when I was 9 months old.
(sigh).
