by Q. Paige, San Quentin State Prison, CA
To be totally transparent I hated writing in my youth due to complications with my learning. At a young age, I was diagnosed with Dyslexia, ADD and ADHD and couldn’t focus for long periods of time. Words jumbled together, sometimes I would read backwards. I hated everything to do with literature and there was no way to change that. So, I thought.
My mom heard of my short-coming and refused to put me in special classes or give me medication so as my saving grace she spent extra time teaching me. She used to make me read everything my hand touched, to where I stopped putting my hands on things. LOL. I told her I hated reading the boring books she picked out and she gave me the best advice ever, she said, “Well, then why don’t you write something you would enjoy reading?” A whole new world was open to me.
My mom is a poet and a short story author. I didn’t know this until my teens. I’m working on getting her published, so she can be my favorite author but she is one of my inspirations to write. As you all know suicide prevention is my muse, and to fight for the little guy will always be my goal.
Why do I write? To give a voice to the bullied, the broken, the black sheep, the forgotten. I have been all of these and then some. What I found out is “hurt people, hurt people.” When you tend to feel like crap you tend to make the people close to you or around you feel like crap. When you’re hurt, you hurt.
Writing is a way to fully say what I want to say without hurting someone’s feelings. Now I’m not saying some of the things I write don’t hurt people but mainly why they get hurt is because I exposed them for hurting me. I will never degrade dehumanize, or belittle anyone EVER! But I will speak of my truths. Writing gave me a voice I never thought I had and now I’m proud to shout with this new found voice of mine to anyone who will hear it!
The Beat, has been an outlet, a platform, a life jacket to someone drowning in a sea we call prison. Guys, whom I never would have thought I’d end up here with, never in a million years but then again. I also never thought I would do nine long months in a juvenile detention center called Camp Erwin Owens (in Kernville, CA.).
I was born in 1987, so I grew up in the 1990’s and they didn’t have outlets like the one my good friend Dave is giving you all. They couldn’t really give us reasons why coming back to jail was a bad thing other than you can’t see your family. To some that was heaven. To some of y’all that probably sounds like heaven.
It’s not! You don’t fit in at home. Home is where the abuse is. You’ve been touched in ways you don’t like or know is wrong. You have the power to speak up. To those who follow my writing, know that I have been all three and can tell you holding it in only leads to death.
Remove yourself from unsafe places because I can guarantee if, “They don’t kill you, you’re going to try to do it yourself.” The power of the pen! Do you guys know that my professor is using my published writings to try and save a teenager’s life? You never know who is going through what you’re going through and just needs to know it does end.
Out of all of the places my writings get published “The Beat” is my favorite because “you all.” I wish I had someone who has been through what y’all are going through and showed me a better way. Who knows I might not be in prison.