After years of standing for morning counts, my body is trained to wake up about 5:35am. Laid back on my steel bottom bunk with my head faced right, I scouted the ten bunks ahead of my end bunk. Minus different rhythms of snoring, most of the guys were asleep like newborn babies. I shifted my head center and rested my chin on my chest to watch a 13″ TV. Processing my country’s involvement in the Israel-Iran war, I closed my eyes and began thanking God for another day.
Months after my Aunt Sylvia died in 2023, my brother, JeMario, was fatally shot. I experienced drug addiction for the first time at 35. Emotionally scarred by my painful loses, I began numbing my pain with buprenorphine (suboxone). I fell into a deep darkness of horror, and I was lost with a 1,000 lb anchor chained to my hands and feet.
“Attention Compound! The time is 0540 hours. Prepare for count,” my thoughts were interrupted by a female’s voice on the dorm’s intercom. As the lights illuminated the 80-bed warehouse-like dorm, yarns and bones cracking filled the air. I sat up and slid my feet into my blue step-ins.
Out of respect, I allowed my morning hardness to soften before I stood up in my grey, skinny sweat pants. I grabbed my washcloth, toothpaste, and toothbrush then strolled to the restroom. After I brushed my teeth and washed my face, I looked in the mirror with a Colgate smile. My fresh fade and glowing skin brought me natural gratification. It felt good to be clean again.
A few months earlier, there was nothing clean about me. From my poor hygiene to my reckless behavior, I was on demon time. Only loyal to a piece of orange film, I developed a petty mentality and destroyed a lot of golden bridges. I tried to run back to God, but I was in love with the devil.
Still smiling on my way back to my bunk, my soul was loaded with elation. After I cleaned my bed area and read My Daily Bread, I unhooked my tablet from its charger and plugged in my Skull Candy ear buds. Maintaining a new habit, I picked up my empty drinking bottle and filled it with water. I recently learned that water gets your organs going, ensuring your food digests properly. As I sang along to Toosii’s “Sapiosexual” song, “…I can give you 8 inches, he can’t even give a good 6…”, I began drinking my 48 ounces of water before breakfast.
“You have a lot of potential. When you tap into that, no one will be able to get in your way,” was what a guy told me last year. The sad reality, however, was that I was in my own way. Feeling hopeless, shame, and guilt, I didn’t care about my life’s goals anymore. While I struggled to break away from my drug addiction, I contemplated suicide on a few occasions; however, I couldn’t find the strength to quit, but I wasn’t bravely weak enough to kill myself.
Leaving out of the housing unit for breakfast, I smelt good and was dressed appropriately: my blue bottom up shirt was tucked neatly into the waistline of my faded blue skinny jeans, and my crispy white sneakers were doubled tied. Confidently wearing the cheap attire available for prisoners, I walked as if I wore Balenciaga from head to toe. With my Ray Ban sunglasses, two pots on each side of my fade and on my eyebrows, I was floating on the cloud of sobriety.
When I walked inside of the dining hall, I immediately wanted to turn back around. I shook my head and quenched my nose, as the unpleasant aroma of half-cooked chicken bulk (meat rock) soaked in watery gravy ruined my appetite. Reluctantly waiting in line for the fruit and milk, I noticed how the female guard at the front of the line kept staring at me. We greeted each other before I got my tray. After I pocketed my apple and cold milk bag, I gave the rest of the tray to someone who wanted it. With the feeling of someone watching me, I looked back to the front of the tray line. The female guard rolled her eyes after I caught her watching me. With my right hand adjusting my collar and the other in my jean’ pocket, I smiled as I left out of the dining hall.
“I know you’re going through a hard time right now, but please, please get yourself together,” my concerned counselor encouraged me when I was unattractively addicted. The guy she had met two years earlier was beyond recognition. When she gave me her words of support, I wasn’t tired of being tired. By the grace of God, though, that time had finally came months later. “Please help me!” was my desperate cry to the prison’s administration and medical staff. The doctor placed me in a medical observation room for detoxification.
When I left the dining hall, I went to medical to receive treatment for my wounded index finger. While the nurse gently wrapped my finger, I channeled back to what I went through during my drug addiction. I am deeply grateful and blessed. “Try not to get it wet when you take a shower,” the nurse instructed. “I’ll try but it’s hard to shower with one hand,” I said. “You need a wife to help you,” she said flirtatiously. The attractive woman was not married, and it was the third attempt she had made in efforts to get my marital status. “I do need a wife, but I’m gonna wait til’ I go home,” I said sincerely. “When do you go home?” she asked me attentively without blinking. Focusing on my recovery and writing children’s books, I wouldn’t have been able to give her a healthy romance. I couldn’t take advantage of her vulnerability, so the promising, safe word, “God’s will”, calmly rolled off my tongue.
Striving to the apex of my purpose, I’m standing on business, and working on my inevitable being; I am the one. Refocusing on my writing career, working on my latest children’s book, “TaQuan Makes a Choice; Please Don’t do Drugs,” I know what I want, destined to become, and my friends and my loved ones feel the same about me. With Jason Aldean’s new song “Whiskey Drink” playing in my head, I couldn’t think of a greater example of how to stay focused, stay free. #BDE