Solitary Refinement Chapter 12
Dearest Elizabeth October 30th 2017
So I waited a few weeks hoping that you’d write me about Nina’s birthday. I just really wanted to be able to give her something and I worked really hard to get that to her. Could you please let her keep it if it’s not too late? Did Nina see the gift before it got put to the curb? Well of course she did it’s a tricycle on our front step in her favourite colour. I guess what I mean to ask is what did you say to her when she wanted to play with it? I’m really upset imagining how sad she may have been about it.
I’d really like to send the kids something for Christmas, it’s not that far away now. Would that be okay with you? The kids love Christmas, I love Christmas. The baking the lights the snow I just love it all. I always wanted to decorate in the first week of November and you always said it was too early, do you remember that?
Are you going to bring the kids trick or treating tomorrow? They had so much fun when I took them out last year. It was so cute that they wanted to do a team costume, Alister called it team spooky. They were a bug catcher and spider. Nobody at the doors really got that he was a bug catcher until he put the net over his sister’s head to demonstrate. She got tired of that pretty fast it was really funny. You were so tired you stayed home saying you’d hand out candy but when I returned all the lights were out and you were already asleep by seven o’clock.
Anyways in my cooking program here I learned how to make one of your favourites, roast chicken and twice baked potatoes. If you come and visit me maybe you could bring some recipes that you’d like me to learn to cook for you. I’d really like to do that. I’ll stop being pushy. I love you, you know that right? I miss you everyday, I’d give anything to even do something like wash the dishes when you’re tired at the end of the day.
Please say something, even just to let me know that you’re reading these.
Sincerely,
Your Husband
Tag: spilled prose
Another Scotch
When the little hand hits twelve
On the face of my watch,
I’ll get off this chair
And pour another scotch.
Yellow and sweet
In a vicious kind of way,
Taking down fences
Ferrel words at end of day.
In the morning it’s coffee
I’ll be electrically afflicted
I bounce between these tonics
When my words are constricted.
The right words never come
My mind held on a scale,
Swatted like a horsefly
Tossed by the gale.
Buzzing energetic,
All business and astute,
Or brilliant in my torpor
But wordless as a brute.
This erratic crazed ballet
Doesn’t really help,
Should make better choices,
Kale, beets, and kelp
If my habits are nonsensical
If you could call me crazy,
I’m halfway to genius
At least I’m not lazy.
– Vagabond Prophet
– Not going to lie, I was trying to write something else and it wasn’t working so I wrote this about writers block..
Unenlightening
I can hear it off the eaves
Drip drip drip.
Distant coyotes,
Yip yip yip.
The darkness and fog
Combine and decide,
Unenlightening.
Tonight we unenlighten.
The rain comes quicker
And thicker than before,
Making soil so fertile
As to be barren.
One dewy drop
Says to another,
“We’re so heavy, full of wet,
Tonight let’s unenlighten.”
That’s when I start to feel,
Along with tobacco smoke
Swirling in my mind,
I’m being unenlightened.
Flipping through your pages
Traditions get unraveled.
With your gold gilded edges,
The unenlightening is frightening.
Contradicting every wisdom
That I’ve ever known.
You put your trust in vagrants,
Rather than royalty.
You talked to strangers
Befriended cheats,
Trusted prostitutes,
Beguiling in the streets.
So I’ll do it I’ll commit,
To break the mold,
To be an idiot,
To become unenlightened.
Rain’s just pouring now,
I’ve just learned up is down,
Meaning we’re all drowning.
I’m the only one who knows.
Thank God for unenlightening.
– Vagabond Prophet
Unenlightening
I can hear it off the eaves
Drip drip drip.
Distant coyotes,
Yip yip yip.
The darkness and fog
Combine and decide,
Unenlightening.
Tonight we unenlighten.
The rain comes quicker
And thicker than before,
Making soil so fertile
As to be barren.
One dewy drop
Says to another,
“We’re so heavy, full of wet,
Tonight let’s unenlighten.”
That’s when I start to feel,
Along with tobacco smoke
Swirling in my mind,
I’m being unenlightened.
Flipping through your pages
Traditions get unraveled.
With your gold gilded edges,
The unenlightening is frightening.
Contradicting every wisdom
That I’ve ever known.
You put your trust in vagrants,
Rather than royalty.
You talked to strangers
Befriended cheats,
Trusted prostitutes,
Beguiling in the streets.
So I’ll do it I’ll commit,
To break the mold,
To be an idiot,
To become unenlightened.
Rain’s just pouring now,
I’ve just learned up is down,
Meaning we’re all drowning.
I’m the only one who knows.
Thank God for unenlightening.
– Vagabond Prophet
Unenlightening
I can hear it off the eaves
Drip drip drip.
Distant coyotes,
Yip yip yip.
The darkness and fog
Combine and decide,
Unenlightening.
Tonight we unenlighten.
The rain comes quicker
And thicker than before,
Making soil so fertile
As to be barren.
One dewy drop
Says to another,
“We’re so heavy, full of wet,
Tonight let’s unenlighten.”
That’s when I start to feel,
Along with tobacco smoke
Swirling in my mind,
I’m being unenlightened.
Flipping through your pages
Traditions get unraveled.
With your gold gilded edges,
The unenlightening is frightening.
Contradicting every wisdom
That I’ve ever known.
You put your trust in vagrants,
Rather than royalty.
You talked to strangers
Befriended cheats,
Trusted prostitutes,
Beguiling in the streets.
So I’ll do it I’ll commit,
To break the mold,
To be an idiot,
To become unenlightened.
Rain’s just pouring now,
I’ve just learned up is down,
Meaning we’re all drowning.
I’m the only one who knows.
Thank God for unenlightening.
– Vagabond Prophet
Solitary Refinement Chapter 13
Dear Joshua November 19th 2017
Still nothing from Liz. I stopped getting excited when they went around handing out the mail different inmates received. My cooking is coming along, that’s good. I stopped paying for that favour with desserts, so that’s good too. The weather has turned lousy so we haven’t been outside in the yard as much, as a result I see Kal has been in the gym more. That’s bad, that’s one guy that doesn’t need to get any more intimidating than he already is. Now me I could stand to work out a bit, okay a lot but I spend all my free time still doing jobs and chores to earn credit. I’ve already started to save for Christmas gifts, I’ve got to try. I don’t know what I’ll get them or how I’ll get it to them but I’ve got to try.
I had an interesting interaction with Ziggy recently. He’s also one of the guys that hangs around Trevor. He asked me if I was still having trouble with Kal. I told him that he still worries me and he still stares at me and seems frustrated that people are always around me.
“Would you like me to make sure he stops?” He asked me punctuating the word ‘stops’ by stabbing a grape on his plate with a fork. I said I didn’t want him to get in trouble on my behalf and that I think I’m safe as long as I don’t get caught alone.
Later when I was talking to Trevor he told me that Ziggy made a similar offer to him before when he had a not very nice cellmate. Seems that with his wife cheating on him he feels particularly passionate about dishing out justice to those prisoners who are here for some kind of sexual misconduct. I asked Trevor what he did when Ziggy made him that offer, he told me that the guy who used to be his cellmate is now in hospital with one fewer eye and his new cellie is much more amiable.
So that’s… terrifying. Am I the only one that gets scared by stuff here? Trevor doesn’t seem scared even though he’s tiny. Ziggy isn’t scared, seems he defines security by his own terms. Kal, no there is no way he’s scared, he’s so huge and weird and doesn’t care what anybody else wants. What would it be like to be in a place like this and have no fear? Maybe it wouldn’t seem that bad, maybe it would just seem like going to work everyday. A place that you don’t want to be at but you’re there because you have to be, controlled schedule, lots of authority figures, like some people don’t like others. I guess that’s how some of them got here though, they didn’t care about the rules and authorities on the outside, why would they care about them here.
I just don’t know how to get there, I jump at every sound. Every time I hear a set of footsteps coming around the corner I wince and hope it’s not Kal. Every meal time I worry somebody is going to stick me with a butter knife when I’m not looking. I haven’t even done anything to make anybody dislike me, not even Kal. His interest in me appears to be more appetite than anger.
For the meantime people don’t really bother me too much because I’m always with Trevor and the others. I just still can’t shake this anxiousness that follows me around like a spectre. I also worry that people don’t respect me for me but rather the people I’m with, and certainly nobody fears me. If anything happens to Trevor to make him go away, if he gets released or hurt there’s nobody looking out for me. Maybe I need to do something to make sure people know not to mess with me, or maybe even just taking Ziggy up on his offer to help me out. I’m just so not okay yet with hurting someone or even having it done on my behalf, I’m not there yet and I hope it doesn’t come to that.
What I do know is that I feel like I’m in a scene from a horror movie. You know where the creepy music goes away and nothing looks out of place at all. Your hero is just walking along normally and it starts to look like everything just might be alright after all. Then, right then is when the worst thing imaginable happens, once hope has begun to entertain its own curiosity.
It’s felt that way for a while now.
Solitary Refinement Chapter 12
Dearest Elizabeth October 30th 2017
So I waited a few weeks hoping that you’d write me about Nina’s birthday. I just really wanted to be able to give her something and I worked really hard to get that to her. Could you please let her keep it if it’s not too late? Did Nina see the gift before it got put to the curb? Well of course she did it’s a tricycle on our front step in her favourite colour. I guess what I mean to ask is what did you say to her when she wanted to play with it? I’m really upset imagining how sad she may have been about it.
I’d really like to send the kids something for Christmas, it’s not that far away now. Would that be okay with you? The kids love Christmas, I love Christmas. The baking the lights the snow I just love it all. I always wanted to decorate in the first week of November and you always said it was too early, do you remember that?
Are you going to bring the kids trick or treating tomorrow? They had so much fun when I took them out last year. It was so cute that they wanted to do a team costume, Alister called it team spooky. They were a bug catcher and spider. Nobody at the doors really got that he was a bug catcher until he put the net over his sister’s head to demonstrate. She got tired of that pretty fast it was really funny. You were so tired you stayed home saying you’d hand out candy but when I returned all the lights were out and you were already asleep by seven o’clock.
Anyways in my cooking program here I learned how to make one of your favourites, roast chicken and twice baked potatoes. If you come and visit me maybe you could bring some recipes that you’d like me to learn to cook for you. I’d really like to do that. I’ll stop being pushy. I love you, you know that right? I miss you everyday, I’d give anything to even do something like wash the dishes when you’re tired at the end of the day.
Please say something, even just to let me know that you’re reading these.
Sincerely,
Your Husband
Another Scotch
When the little hand hits twelve
On the face of my watch,
I’ll get off this chair
And pour another scotch.
Yellow and sweet
In a vicious kind of way,
Taking down fences
Ferrel words at end of day.
In the morning it’s coffee
I’ll be electrically afflicted
I bounce between these tonics
When my words are constricted.
The right words never come
My mind held on a scale,
Swatted like a horsefly
Tossed by the gale.
Buzzing energetic,
All business and astute,
Or brilliant in my torpor
But wordless as a brute.
This erratic crazed ballet
Doesn’t really help,
Should make better choices,
Kale, beets, and kelp
If my habits are nonsensical
If you could call me crazy,
I’m halfway to genius
At least I’m not lazy.
– Vagabond Prophet
– Not going to lie, I was trying to write something else and it wasn’t working so I wrote this about writers block..
Smoke
The smoke rolls through
Looking for a sign of you.
It twists and spins
Looking for some truth within
The skies turned gray
Like a dissapointing parade.
Is this all there is?
This Valley of ash
Is this all there is
This site of a crash ?
The smoke ran through
Leaving no trace of you
I don’t know what to do
Without a trace of you
So roll through like smoke
Even if it leaves me broke
Is this all there is?
This Valley of ash
Is this all there is
This site of a crash ?
Is this all that there ever was?
Tell me why do you do it?
Why do you put me through it?
If this is all there ever was
Is this all there is?
This Valley of ash
Is this all there is
This site of a crash?
You fill me like smoke
And leave a bit of light within
After this smokescreen
Now I really know what’s clean
– Vagabond Prophet
– Song number two everybody I hope you like it.
Another Scotch
When the little hand hits twelve
On the face of my watch,
I’ll get off this chair
And pour another scotch.
Yellow and sweet
In a vicious kind of way,
Taking down fences
Ferrel words at end of day.
In the morning it’s coffee
I’ll be electrically afflicted
I bounce between these tonics
When my words are constricted.
The right words never come
My mind held on a scale,
Swatted like a horsefly
Tossed by the gale.
Buzzing energetic,
All business and astute,
Or brilliant in my torpor
But wordless as a brute.
This erratic crazed ballet
Doesn’t really help,
Should make better choices,
Kale, beets, and kelp
If my habits are nonsensical
If you could call me crazy,
I’m halfway to genius
At least I’m not lazy.
– Vagabond Prophet
– Not going to lie, I was trying to write something else and it wasn’t working so I wrote this about writers block..
Vagabond Prophet 