It's pretty interesting that the day I decided to write about mental health, two men asked me if I would join them in doing the same for an upcoming event. They, like me, recognized that there was a big problem brewing in prison. This hit home all the more when I sat in the chow hall, looking at the men around me. You would assume that criminals were everywhere, yes, but that's not the case. The men around me meow like cats when you talk to them. Others carry on a conversatio

My day always began in prayer as I crawled off my top bunk. The cramped quarters were my shared domain alongside Red, my celly. We rarely talked in the morning, maybe because we're mentally preparing ourselves for the daily grind of mass incarceration--or my breath stinks and he hadn't informed me yet. Yeah, humor, that was a necessary tool when you're watching an elder who spent 40 years in a cell. Do not misinterpret that I'm laughing at him; more like I'm making him laugh.

Prison sucks! That is a fact that 100% of the incarcerated populace in America would agree with. This became apparently true when I sat in on an interactive journal program where we had intakes participating in a small classroom at Nottoway Correction Center in Virginia. They opened up about their lives, and I just cringed. Our job as peer mentors is to motivate the men, assisting them in becoming more than their worst. Well, I had a notion on how to proceed, but that was das

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

When the start of the summer semester of college began in Nottoway Correction Center, my world changed. I initially signed up for four classes: History, Computer Literacy, Religion and Quantitative Reasoning. The workload would be a heavy one, but Religion was dropped due to something outside of my control. Even so, three classes in prison was hectic already, but when I sat down and learned about Quantitative Reasoning, hectic was an understatement. Every student that I spoke

It took 27 years for the New York Knicks to finally reach the 2026 NBA Finals. The borough of Manhattan has become the place to be, thanks to them making it so far. My home. The mecca of sports, as some say. To me, I just wished I could be there, wearing a throwback Patrick Ewing jersey, matching shorts, a fitted ballcap and a pair of all-white Air Force Ones. I would take a stroll through the East River Park and watch the squirrels as they scampered up and down a tree. Jogge

It's Saturday morning and I'm in the dayroom, chewing on a green apple for breakfast. The soundtrack for the day was Post Malone's "I Fall Apart." My mood...I didn't know? You see, we came off of another annual lockdown and while in my bunk, I contemplated my existence. Now, when I finally sauntered out of my cell, I'm wondering if my shadow would be seen like I'm a freaking groundhog--more weeks of miserable overcast. I felt like this when we learned Sincere Allah took his l

A whistle rattled my snooze mode as I groggily awoke in my cell. This was followed by my celly shifting his weight in his bottom bunk. "Stand for count." Those words echoed in my cranium as I sat up, readying for institutional headcount. That annoying announcement was permanently imprinted in my head for a startling 27 years. However many times I heard it, the one constant that always remained was "I gotta get the hell out of here." My world continued to be in a cage...one wh

I know the only man to ever have a single man status on Wallen Ridge State Prison (one of the two supermax prisons in Virginia). The Predator acquired this due to the numerous sexual assaults on other men. A man harming other men in such a violent way disgusts me. The Predator and I have been around one another for nearly two decades. I first met him when we were in Bravo 6, on Wallen Ridge State Prison. He was a large, country brother who came off laid back. He easily made a

In prison, friendships developed like a seed; they took time, love and patience to bloom. You would think that there was a secret for making a friend in an environment like prison, but truly, no, relationships just happened like when Rah moved into my cell in Augusta State Prison. The day I met Rah, we would've bypassed one another if we weren't cellies, being that I'm nearly 15 years older than him. Plus — because we're New Yorkers — he's from Queens and I'm from Manhattan.

A transgender entered our housing unit and shouted female on the floor. This was a sergeant who looked like a man on the outside, but was a woman at heart--and those incarcerated did not agree. You heard men screaming, "You're not a female, you're a man." As I witnessed this, I became disgusted by the men around me. Why? This reminded me of when African Americans were being called the N-word. As the day progressed, I wondered how we couldn't be more than angry men who lashed

I met Micky J on Augusta Correctional Center, a man who spent 40 years incarcerated in a Virginia prison. He reminded me of the pimp from the classic Superfly movie. His salt and pepper afro was always well-maintained, as was his sculpted body for a 60-year-old man. He worked out all the time and bragged about being in better shape than the younger men around him. What made him most proud was how he kept the tiled floor in the dayroom polished like glass. That was Micky J, no

Tupac Shakur expressed that a rose growing from concrete was a beautiful impossibility. That was why three incarcerated men in a congested dayroom working to attain their associate degree appeared as an anomaly to the outside world. Education changed the lost to the found by offering them a path of success. An average man entered a prison environment with aspirations for survival, nothing more. This was attributed to the notion of what was constantly shared in society: Crimin

My friend Lefty called me into the dayroom, sharing with me that his sister had died, and asked if he could borrow eight dollars. Hi, this is prison, and craziness occurred daily--and yes, I lent Lefty the eight dollars. I remained on the top tier watching him vanish from my view, lugging mackerels and chips. Next to me was my neighbor Chris. Chris was an older white man who hid away in his cell as he worked through his life sentence. We started up a conversation about the st

Thursday, I'm up at six in the morning, shouting happy birthday to Red, my celly of two years. He tiredly thanked me as our day began. I waited an hour before the cell door opened and out I went, moving down the tier with a mozzarella cheese bar, a vanilla health shake, eight individual vanilla wafers, a strawberry Kool-Aid and my small plastic bowl and spoon. Ramutu ran into me with the small bags of milk I asked him for to make the cream cheese for Red's cheesecake--his bir

I made my way up to Medical on a cold February morning, only to learn that I'm heading out on a transportation run for a tooth extraction. This surprised me because I have never been transported off-site for my medical needs. I sat in the waiting area, being asked by a female officer my uniform size...Honestly, I didn't know it. This was how foreign I am to a transportation run. As we figured out my size, men began filling the entryway. Some for their diabetic shot, others to

The elderly of the prison system have always been my encyclopedia when navigating life inside. Funny, now I'm the one the young men approached for wisdom. In all truth, this wasn't a badge of honor, but more so the reality of my being incarcerated for far too long. Now they call me Unc (short for uncle). I'm a 49 year old that sat alone each morning at a stainless steel table. My books and college assignments littered the table as I sipped lemon tea from my coffee cup. The wo

My mind can't stop thinking about my brother Zo dying from cancer. Everything around me triggered memories about him. He was a shield that protected me from this madness known as prison. I been sharing how much I miss Zo, and that brings on more tears. Chris, my closest friend, worried I would relapse and get high. That started us on a journey as to why that would never happen: I'm not afraid to ask for help, and I'm not Tim. The night of Zo's passing, Tim decided to disrespe