-Kente, Santa Cruz I cry when my emotions are all over the place, when I am feeling sad or mad or frustrated all at the same time and they just all come out. Sometimes I can’t control it and it just comes out. The last time I cried was last Tuesday when I was in court listening to my parents talk about how much I’m a good kid and the judge still decided to not let me come home and be with my family all over again. I wasn’t alone. I had my lovely lawyer right next to me making
Continue ReadingCreating a Vision
-Jose, Santa Clara After more than three years of being incarcerated, I have developed and created a vision that I once never had. For so many years, I was blinded to the fact that there was so much more that being contained in a single environment that is built to keep the people of color down. The system that those so-called good Samaritans “government” implemented on our people, was to “teach us a lesson” or to break bad habits, but all it’s done is just make us more mad and more hungry. Some individuals will never get out of the
Continue ReadingHow I See It
-Demar M. Nelson I’ve been walking and dreaming in prison for a long time — fifteen years to be exact. It amazes me how much I misunderstood the seriousness of life and now my mission is to get back. At the age of twenty-one I stood before a judge and from the bench he looked at me but didn’t see me. Seeing me would have meant thinking of my past, my parents, my traumas and what led me to him. But the system does not allow that because if he were to approach his task of sentencing humans beings in
Continue ReadingMy Most Honest Form
-Adam My self-image is complex. I am a strong minded, easy going, down to earth fella, who can accredit his mistakes to poor choices and negative behavioral patterns. Through periods of time I’ve been someone I don’t want to be; cowardly and insecure. I have, after so many past attempts, been successfully fighting to become the man I am in my most honest form. This has taken failure and perseverance, mistake and success, but it’s taken a major amount of desire to change and be better. Honestly. When I transfixed my mind to improvement and that goal of enhancing and
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Volume 29.23/24
Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingEd Note 29.23/24
Welcome readers and writers to yet another marvelous issue of The Beat Within, where incarcerated writers from near and far come together to voice their testimony. It’s a true honor to be a home for your thoughts and experiences, and we’re so grateful to each and every one of you for letting us into your journey. We’re turning our editorial section over to two of our interns from Urban High School of San Francisco, Julia, and Lucia. Julia gives us a peak into the foundational class that The Beat works alongside with, and Lucia details the tender experience of transcribing
Continue ReadingMy Final Beat
–Efrain, Sonoma The Beat Within — where you can express your thoughts, emotions, and qualities to the world. I remember my first Beat a couple years back. I thought that writing wasn’t all that, and that it wasn’t my thing until Michael convinced me to write something. At first, it was small because I thought, “Writing is not what gang members do,” but over time the topics and talks started to hit home. I found myself writing more and more. It was a way I was able to express how I felt. I started writing on my free time. It
Continue ReadingHow I Feel Right Now
-A, Sacramento Recently, I have been good until I came back here. But it’s not that bad because I might leave on the sixteenth. I am nervous because I’m gonna have a little one at the end of this month. I personally am trying to keep my head up, but I keep getting that feeling that the judge is not gonna let me go home because of my charge. I feel like the juvenile system is not fair all the way because they don’t give us a release date. But every day that I am in here and my court
Continue ReadingAffirmations
-Johnny Rodriguez Affirmations are important to me because of my general purposeful life of meaningful service. Affirmations are important to me to stay steadfast within my short- and long-term goals. I am not perfect to this moment, but I am faithful within my meaningful life even if I fall short at times to stay the course in light of what is out of my control. Affirmations are important to me to affirm the archaic building blocks my loving mother instilled in me. I possibly could have failed to realize or recognize the nurture care I received from my mother, especially
Continue ReadingThe Face of Emmett Till
-Shawn Block, Mt. Sterling, ILFace the face of Emmett Till ’til justice finds him wholeFace the wounds that haunt us still restless in his soulThe ballooned orbs where cheeks should beThe bludgeoned smile that we can’t seeLook upon the gruesome marks of Jim Crow’s heavy tollPeer into the casket, gasp at evil’s wicked handPeer into the past at unmasked inhumanity of manThe mangled form that was a boyThe equal rights they can’t destroyLook upon the face that caused the world to take a standHis mother made us look, just look and let the whole world seeShe showed us what they
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