“I don’t want to leave”

I don’t want to leave. What more can I say? The dread that overcomes me as I feel the impending date looming. It’s coming and I can’t stop it. I’m forced to face it. I’ve done my time in complete oblivion. Pretending this day would never come. Unlike most convicts who count down every single day. I was utterly content going on w/ my day today like in my razer-wire rimmed protective bubble I lived in. Nobody could get to me, harm me, kill me. But most of all I wasn’t able to cause myself any more destruction. I couldn’t ruin myself any more than I already did. When people ask me about my impending release I become petrified, it feels as if though I am paralyzed, my mouth goes dry, its hard to breath, or swallow, my palms sweat, heart races, I am filled w/ emotions that I am too scared to verbalize.

The definition of fear is: Alarm and agitation caused by the expectation or realization of danger. Who in prison would of ever thought that an upcoming release would evoke such fearfulness in one? I become angry w/ the system. I grew up here, this is my home. I don’t know anything else about life except this life, and now you want to rip me out of the only stable home I’ve ever had. It is very sad & pathetic to say, this is comfortable & easy. It’s all I know. Think what you may, but I don’t know any other way.

In the words of one of our founding fathers Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death”. Give me my freedom & I’ll probably get my death A fish out of water. How else can I describe this? I’m sick of the analogies. There is nothing else I can say to make you understand. Unless you’ve walked in my shoes.

I’ve been here since the age of 17. Now 11 years later, I’m being told its almost time to go. Please, don’t make me. It’s all I know. I promise never to complain again about the food in the chow hall, as long as I know I’ll have a meal. You won’t hear a word about a cold shower as long as I have one. I don’t know what outside is. How to live, walk, talk, breathe, look or even act like “outside”. And now I have to go w/out even an instruction manual. All I can do now is ask for your prayers and your luck b/c I’ll need it.