-Tommy, Santa Rosa, CA
Dear Beat Within,
I hope that this finds you in good health as well as in high spirits.
I’m not sure if you recall, I wrote to you around 2019 or so to give you a reminder that should click… The first book anybody gave me was from you, all the way back in 1996! And the book was “Of Mice and Men…”
I’m sorry that I never wrote back! I don’t have an excuse for doing so, and the true Taurus I am, I’m not gone bull shhh you with one.
I’m now forty-three and have done six prison terms. I’ll be going to a trial next month (second in eighteen years) on a case that the D.A. has zero chance of winning.
I have been in custody for over fifteen months. How much money do you think that has cost? And all the while, they are closing multiple schools due to a lack of money. However, they seem to have plenty of cash to build a state-of-the-art courthouse up here.
The system is not broken! The system in place is working just fine, and that is the real issue. People expect the system to change, and it will not unless we actually change it.
The system is obviously not going to change from outside-in. However, it can be changed from the inside out. I have been through hell. I have been placed in the prison factory system at the age of seven years old.
I read the Press Democract every day, and on top of all the sadness and chaos, it has been normal as of late to see almost daily articles about school closures. Then, on my way to and from court, I can see the new courthouse that’s been under construction for the last five years! I wonder how many of the kids who are being affected by all the local schools being closed will end up in that courthouse?
I feel obligated to change the system. There are a lot of powerful people who, like me, are products of this prison factory, who can enact real change. They can go to all the various city council type meetings, not only making our presence felt but also running for the seats themselves.
A closed school today, is a new prison tomorrow.
The answer has always been…The Beat Within.
While not the focal point, I had been relocated to CDC from October to May. While in New Folsom, my big brother passed away at forty-seven years old.
The biggest effect it had on me was actually looking at how I have been living my life! I really did live like there was no tomorrow. It’s all good if it really is the last day. However, ripples from a stone thrown into the pond today can affect tomorrow.
In 2029, I’ll be the very same age my brother was the day he passed away. So, now I’m asking myself, what do I want my life to look like at that point in time?
I was asked not too long ago if I could, would I be willing to relive the same life? At first, I said hell no, but then it made me truly ponder my past. I decided I wanted to live out the rest of my life in such a way that my last words would be, “hell yeah, I’ll relive this life.”
From the bottom of my heart, you are the type of real man I strive to be! Your mental and physical strength is staggering.
It’s not quite as clear as it used to be, but I do remember, twenty-eight years ago, me asking you (David) what I should write about, and your answer, in essence, was to write whatever I feel like writing.
I was a thirteen-year-old blonde and blue-eyed white boy from Turk and Leavenworth; the heart of the TL who was on my way to doing five years in CYA.
All these years, you have powered your heart and soul to give a voice to countless boys, girls, and now men and women, who, if not for you, would not know they had one.
I’m so heavily covered with marks that most don’t notice or see that I got pain in the crook of my left arm because I used to shoot up. I dealt with my pain with a needle in the vein.
Now, I write songs and poetry. Two of the poems I’m sending you I actually won first and second place at last year’s Sonoma County Fair for creative writing and poetry via the inmate art contest.
I’m going to wrap the letter portion up and start transferring the poem to send. Feel free to do what you wish with them, I’m sure you’ll figure something out.
Until next time, peace be upon you.