You can imprison my body

The tight cuffs strangled more than her wrists. It was her freedom that she fumbled, and it was slipping away. It was all over.

The crime spree lasted three months. Going to her job everyday was risky, but abruptly leaving would be even more obvious. Somehow she managed to evade an arrest and live normally. Or so she thought.

They robbed, cheated and conspired. They stole identities, wrote bad checks, and forged prescriptions. She never thought of herself as a miscreant. She was generally a good girl. Raised in a two parent hard working household. Their small house sat on half an acre. She had plenty of room to play and fresh air in her lungs. They went on weekend getaways and barbecued at their relatives. They went to see fireworks and to the fair. She received an allowance and played every sport that she could.

Somewhere down that road, she became curious about what went on across the tracks. Instead of going to college, she got a regular job. She formulated ways to get money. Illegally. She misused her God given intelligence. She ended up living a double life because of the kids, doing dirt, making massive amounts of cash and blowing it on whatever they wanted. Clothes, cars, jewelry and vacations. The children were oblivious. To them, life was just one big adventure.

This was her day of reckoning. The police assigned to her surveillance caught up with her as she quickly stopped at her residence to grab beachwear for the children. They were all shocked. She was supposed to be in and out. Pack a bag and get out of dodge. They had been hotel hopping because she thought her last crime would certainly land her on the local news. She was scared to turn on the television. She was officially on the run and the kids were caught up in her mix.

Sweat poured from her curls and drippd upon the vinyl backseat of the tight space she felt suffocated in; like a tomb. The air was getting thick. The windows fogged from her internal cries and deep breaths. Emotions were taking over. She wanted to die, scream, beg for mercy, wake herself from this nightmare. The one she brought on herself. She craned her neck to get one last look at her daughter. The middle one. The wise one. The one who would suffer the most from her transgressions.

They were oddly connected. It was if they shared one heart, one brain and vibrated on the same frequency. There were two others but it was obvious who her favorite was. She excused alot of her sassy behavior because she understood where it originated from. She could see things.

She knew that she would have to stand up for herself, fight, learn everything from people who didnt care, and heal herself forever. It was if she was preparing herself for the way her world would be. She was only six but she was wiser than most adults. She could see through people and communicate with her eyes.

The young girl casually leaned on the back of the police car as if it was a desk in school. She stared through her mothers eyes begging her not to go.

Don't leave me Momma they're gonna hurt me.

Life was going to be different. Her mother was going away. Although there was space and metal and glass between them, her mother agreed without uttering a word.

Yes baby I'm going away and I'm sorry. I love you so much. You're gonna be alright.

The child would never be alright.

It took two years for all of her charges which ranged from drug possession to fraud, to be addressed in court. Being sentenced to 15 years was like getting a death sentence. It was a portion of what she deserved. She was the ringleader. She came up different. She knew better. The judge looked down his nose at her during the trial. Her co defendants received much lesser sentences. All because they grew up in the projects and were raised by single mothers.

By the time they all touched prison grounds, they drifted apart. It became every woman for herself.

The first night was the roughest. Silence never came. It was hard to fall into a deep sleep. There were always whimpers and muffled cries. Some sang gospel songs, but silence never came. It could drive a sane person off the course.

Jail was different. It was almost like a game or a big sleepover. A gossip session. People went in and out. Driving infractions, failure to appear for court, and child support. Minor stuff kept the revolving door revolving. Some people bonded out the same day.

But this was prison. There was a permanence in the air. She knew on the first night that she didn't fit in. She wasn't like any of these women and she could never get used to this. There were murderers and drug addicts and worse walking the floor like they were on a college campus. Their crimes were unspeakable and unforgivable. Their stories were told in documentaries that would end up on major networks. There was an old death row building. She heard whispers of horror stories come from the mouths of these hurt women. How they were beaten by their fathers and lovers. Hated by their mothers. Forced to do things, even forced to do their crimes and then left for dead. She wasn't like any of them. She didn't have a habit or a pimp. Her parents loved and cared for her and they would continue to be there for her.

She started to care less about her appearance. She never made her bed correctly, everything managed to come undone in her sleep. She bathed daily but she didn't buy expensive shoes or name brand jeans from the commissary. She didn't iron fancy creases in her state pants or leave whole outfits underneath her mattress for the next day. Who was she trying to impress? She didn't wear makeup extracted from candy and she didn't spend her money in the hair salon. She maintained her own ponytail. She had few acquaintances. She never allowed herself to get caught up in the drama, and there was lots of it. It was an ongoing soap opera. She kept her head low and she worked. And she wrote.

Yes. One night something arose in her. It started with one blank sheet of paper. Before she knew what was truly transforming in her, she'd finished writing a whole novel. She wrote exciting fiction but with aspects of her tumultuous life entwined in sentences that filled every canvas. She wrote erratically to the point she became an insomniac. She gave birth to another child. It felt labor like. She got stuck sometime. She pushed herself. Breathed deeply, cried, mourned after she finished a piece. It gave her peace. It took her to places she'd never been to in reality. She wrote of places she imagined in her head. Painted novels like pictures, only with words. And she studied other authors and their styles of writing. She read the dictionary and thesaurus. She delved in hundreds of books during her sentence and she wrote six.

The state deemed her inmate #3746125 but she was an author. Her body may have been in prison but her mind was free.