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In the early hours before the sun rears its shiny head, I'm awake. My bunk was the place I occupied as my celly grunted like a wild bear, urinating his bladder into our porcelain toilet. The trickling sound it gave off as it splashed the water in the toilet was deafening as I lay there, desiring anywhere else to be--then he farted, burped, and washed his hands. He returned to his slumber as I was trapped there, wide-eyed. I lived with many men in my decades of confinement, so

On July 17th, the air quality in Virginia was so bad that Nottoway Correctional Center cancelled outside recreation for the entire day. Even so, I still had to march outside and attend my computer literacy class. Each step dragged me down, and the toxic air gave me a headache. One so bad that I stepped inside the Vocation building and sat down. The headache eventually subsided but I had to head back outside in an hour and a half. When I finally retreated to my housing unit, I

The 4th of July is celebrated by all, even those incarcerated. However, when there is no central air in one's prison facility, celebrations are forgotten as those in a cell do whatever they can to ward off the unbearable heat. During the first week of July, the heat index was one hundred degrees in Virginia, but inside Nottoway Correction Center, it was much higher. Each housing unit holds 64 incarcerated men, housed in a claustrophobic cell, where they utilized '12 inch fans