Solitary Refinement Chapter 14
Dear Joshua December 2nd 2017
I’ve never really been artistically gifted. Stick figures is all I could ever do. However lately I’ve been finding myself wishing I had paints, maybe watercolours? I like the way that the colours bleed into one another.
I once saw a graphic novel where all the people and structures were sketched in pen or pencil, solid black lines, and then the colour was all filled in with watercolours. And things like trees and clouds were watercolours too. I liked how the black line told me that this is where that object ends, and the paint suggested otherwise as it bled past the penciled boundaries just a little bit. As if to make the whole image share the page, and share the viewers attention. It was the first time I really paid much attention to the style and medium of the pieces; asking questions like, “why did the artist do it that way? that’s so unusual.” In the end the strongest feeling I got was this idea that every person extends beyond their body just a little bit to colour the world around them. Sometimes if I squint I can see it still. Nina she blurred everything pink around her. Alister orange because of his sunny disposition, his creativity so boundless that the world is created anew every time he wakes. Kal leaks grey, and I don’t know what colour bleeds out of me and I’m not about to ask anybody either.
If I were to paint what it looks like in here I would run out of grey before I touched any of the good colours. I remember learning in stories about how the world came to be, and no matter which one you listened to they were always so colourful. In the Christian story God created everything with just his words and then it happened. Trees, roosters, the seas, everything. Other stories have mother earth and father sky, so many different stories but they are all common in being vividly colourful. Rich blues and delicate yellows, royal purples and deep greens. I really miss seeing the expansive and rich diversity of the outside world.
When God creates it’s colourful. When man creates, it’s grey and monochromatic. This place is built by men, for men, because of what men have done and none of it is beautiful or worth a second glance.
The more and more I get scared about Kal doing something to me the more I wish I was on the outside. Even if it was to do something like clean the gutters. Scooping the mucky browns from above the dewy green of the grass is still so much better than being here.
I realized recently that I don’t know how I would react if I was cornered by him. If my back was against the wall and nobody was there to help me. Would I just let him hurt me and hope it’s over soon? Would I shout and scream hoping somebody came? Would I try to run or fight. Hopefully I never have to find out what will happen in that kind of situation. I like to think I might be able to fight him off until a guard came to stop him. I’ll need to find a weapon I can keep on me or hidden under my bed or something. It seems crazy that I’ve been in prison for almost six months and I’m yet to find out what kind of person I am in crisis.
It won’t be that way forever. I can’t keep counting on Ziggy or Trevor or even Mark to always be there to make sure I don’t get hurt. A person as scared of Kal as I am, I need to know what I’ll do when I’m in a situation where I have to protect myself. I could maybe find a weapon. I’ll figure it out after Christmas. Right now I’ve been working so much when I’m not in my cooking program to try and get Christmas presents, I don’t know what I’ll get yet for the kids. If I need your help again I’ll let you know. Thanks for listening to all of my random thoughts.
Tag: spilled writing
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 14
Dear Joshua December 2nd 2017
I’ve never really been artistically gifted. Stick figures is all I could ever do. However lately I’ve been finding myself wishing I had paints, maybe watercolours? I like the way that the colours bleed into one another.
I once saw a graphic novel where all the people and structures were sketched in pen or pencil, solid black lines, and then the colour was all filled in with watercolours. And things like trees and clouds were watercolours too. I liked how the black line told me that this is where that object ends, and the paint suggested otherwise as it bled past the penciled boundaries just a little bit. As if to make the whole image share the page, and share the viewers attention. It was the first time I really paid much attention to the style and medium of the pieces; asking questions like, “why did the artist do it that way? that’s so unusual.” In the end the strongest feeling I got was this idea that every person extends beyond their body just a little bit to colour the world around them. Sometimes if I squint I can see it still. Nina she blurred everything pink around her. Alister orange because of his sunny disposition, his creativity so boundless that the world is created anew every time he wakes. Kal leaks grey, and I don’t know what colour bleeds out of me and I’m not about to ask anybody either.
If I were to paint what it looks like in here I would run out of grey before I touched any of the good colours. I remember learning in stories about how the world came to be, and no matter which one you listened to they were always so colourful. In the Christian story God created everything with just his words and then it happened. Trees, roosters, the seas, everything. Other stories have mother earth and father sky, so many different stories but they are all common in being vividly colourful. Rich blues and delicate yellows, royal purples and deep greens. I really miss seeing the expansive and rich diversity of the outside world.
When God creates it’s colourful. When man creates, it’s grey and monochromatic. This place is built by men, for men, because of what men have done and none of it is beautiful or worth a second glance.
The more and more I get scared about Kal doing something to me the more I wish I was on the outside. Even if it was to do something like clean the gutters. Scooping the mucky browns from above the dewy green of the grass is still so much better than being here.
I realized recently that I don’t know how I would react if I was cornered by him. If my back was against the wall and nobody was there to help me. Would I just let him hurt me and hope it’s over soon? Would I shout and scream hoping somebody came? Would I try to run or fight. Hopefully I never have to find out what will happen in that kind of situation. I like to think I might be able to fight him off until a guard came to stop him. I’ll need to find a weapon I can keep on me or hidden under my bed or something. It seems crazy that I’ve been in prison for almost six months and I’m yet to find out what kind of person I am in crisis.
It won’t be that way forever. I can’t keep counting on Ziggy or Trevor or even Mark to always be there to make sure I don’t get hurt. A person as scared of Kal as I am, I need to know what I’ll do when I’m in a situation where I have to protect myself. I could maybe find a weapon. I’ll figure it out after Christmas. Right now I’ve been working so much when I’m not in my cooking program to try and get Christmas presents, I don’t know what I’ll get yet for the kids. If I need your help again I’ll let you know. Thanks for listening to all of my random thoughts.
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 14
Dear Joshua December 2nd 2017
I’ve never really been artistically gifted. Stick figures is all I could ever do. However lately I’ve been finding myself wishing I had paints, maybe watercolours? I like the way that the colours bleed into one another.
I once saw a graphic novel where all the people and structures were sketched in pen or pencil, solid black lines, and then the colour was all filled in with watercolours. And things like trees and clouds were watercolours too. I liked how the black line told me that this is where that object ends, and the paint suggested otherwise as it bled past the penciled boundaries just a little bit. As if to make the whole image share the page, and share the viewers attention. It was the first time I really paid much attention to the style and medium of the pieces; asking questions like, “why did the artist do it that way? that’s so unusual.” In the end the strongest feeling I got was this idea that every person extends beyond their body just a little bit to colour the world around them. Sometimes if I squint I can see it still. Nina she blurred everything pink around her. Alister orange because of his sunny disposition, his creativity so boundless that the world is created anew every time he wakes. Kal leaks grey, and I don’t know what colour bleeds out of me and I’m not about to ask anybody either.
If I were to paint what it looks like in here I would run out of grey before I touched any of the good colours. I remember learning in stories about how the world came to be, and no matter which one you listened to they were always so colourful. In the Christian story God created everything with just his words and then it happened. Trees, roosters, the seas, everything. Other stories have mother earth and father sky, so many different stories but they are all common in being vividly colourful. Rich blues and delicate yellows, royal purples and deep greens. I really miss seeing the expansive and rich diversity of the outside world.
When God creates it’s colourful. When man creates, it’s grey and monochromatic. This place is built by men, for men, because of what men have done and none of it is beautiful or worth a second glance.
The more and more I get scared about Kal doing something to me the more I wish I was on the outside. Even if it was to do something like clean the gutters. Scooping the mucky browns from above the dewy green of the grass is still so much better than being here.
I realized recently that I don’t know how I would react if I was cornered by him. If my back was against the wall and nobody was there to help me. Would I just let him hurt me and hope it’s over soon? Would I shout and scream hoping somebody came? Would I try to run or fight. Hopefully I never have to find out what will happen in that kind of situation. I like to think I might be able to fight him off until a guard came to stop him. I’ll need to find a weapon I can keep on me or hidden under my bed or something. It seems crazy that I’ve been in prison for almost six months and I’m yet to find out what kind of person I am in crisis.
It won’t be that way forever. I can’t keep counting on Ziggy or Trevor or even Mark to always be there to make sure I don’t get hurt. A person as scared of Kal as I am, I need to know what I’ll do when I’m in a situation where I have to protect myself. I could maybe find a weapon. I’ll figure it out after Christmas. Right now I’ve been working so much when I’m not in my cooking program to try and get Christmas presents, I don’t know what I’ll get yet for the kids. If I need your help again I’ll let you know. Thanks for listening to all of my random thoughts.
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
Vagabond Prophet 