Do I dream for You or for me?

Paul Cresey

No more coffee. No more sunsets. No more kisses. No more joy rides. No more football games. No more guys’ nights out. No more cuddling. No more slow dancing. No more morning news. No more freedom…

The lights dim at ten and are gone. It’s all routine now, dinner at seven, doors locked at eight, lights out at ten. I think its summer. It’s brighter in here during summer. In the winter they don’t bother keeping the light’s on past eight, their way of saving taxpayer’s dollars; their way of filling their guts with a few more donuts. It’s blind robbery. They take away our lives, they take away our sanity and then…and then…one last kick in the balls: no more sunshine.

When you’re in here for as long as I’ve been here, the night is silent. If you’re new…well that’s another story.

Sometimes when I like to pretend that everything’s fine and dandy, I listen. I listen to the men praying out loud—screaming at God—pleading with the guards and getting yelled at from above and ignored from beyond. I’m sorry son a life sentence is a life sentence and it’s exactly how it sounds. They don’t tell you they lock up your soul.

Also, if you listen close enough, there are the tears, too many tears to assign a number. They run out of water fast in here. Everyone’s so fucking dry in the morning that the first-years end up missing their share of boiled rain water and they are forced to suffer until lunch. The smart ones—the old folks at the front of the line—take two glasses and sell them later for money or trade them for cigarettes. Most people learn to cry silently, but that takes time. I cry silently. It took me ten hard, cold beatings. Every now and then some young punk breaks down and gets the ass kicking of his life. When this happens, the roughnecks and the basket cases start hooting, hollering, laughing and cursing, until the warden wakes up from his homely night sleep and, over the loud speaker, tells us to shut the fuck up, before he decides to keep us through breakfast and lunch the next day…or week. It never gets that bad. Regardless of our desperation for sanctity and exodus we all understand how much we need our morning water.

I grab the only book I’ve read in a long time and flip to Corinthians. In my head I recount through the Apostle’s divine interpretation of his conscience and I ask God if he really felt this way through jail and all of his trials. I’m never answered.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing …

If I sit in this jail cell for twenty more years and curse the heavens will I have love?

I only got through a few pages before I tossed it beside the toilet. The streaks of water and the stains of yellow on its pages are the result of this countless tossing…spitting…crying…

I try to lie back on my bed but the rusted springs creak too loudly for peace and the wear and tear on the old box spring mattress puts my left side a little lower to the ground then my right. I was more comfortable on the cold, wet pavement where the mice roam.

These days I tend to dream more often. I tend to remember. Eventually after much trying and praying and willing, I’ve learned to control my dreams. Sometimes I will myself to Hawaii and spend countless hours swimming in the lukewarm water. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see her, the girl of my dreams, my childhood princess, all grown up. She’s a reoccurring figment of my imagination; a perfectly formed women. I cry out her name. Victoria. She’s running along the sand towards me. I’m paddling as fast as I can. I struggle against the tide and the annoying child’s toys. I am always running or swimming or climbing and it always ends the same. We never embrace…I never make it. I’m always awoken by the sound of clanging metal, the spinning of pistons and gears, as my jail cell door opens.

Like I said, I’ve learned to cry silently. I’ve learned to find the beach and the crystal blue ocean. I’ve learned to climb Everest and tread the Nile. I’ve learned to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and a catch Rainbow Trout. But I’ve never learned to love. In fact, I’ve almost forgotten. I’ve never learned how to touch her, hold her, all I can do is watch as her golden hair and peachy face melts into rats and dirty water. When that happens, when I dream of her and wake up in a dark and musty room, well…well, that’s more maddening then the dryness, the depression, the darkness.

Then, like all the other men of this prison, you hear my screams.