Keep It Moving

By Prisoner K

Image courtesy of Study New York

I’m sitting on the Metro-North platform in Harlem. That’s 125th Street if you’re not up on your Big Apple.

I’m here today because in a few minutes I’ll get on a train and head out to White Plains. Once there, one of my dearest friends and mentor, John Proctor, will pick me up and take me to Manhattanville College in Purchase.

The college has invited me to attend Human Rights Awareness Day 2021. The event is using my long-form poem Hard Day’s Work for the Poleeseman as an inspiring work by an individual impacted by the carceral apparatus. (Did they say “inspiring,” or am I patting myself on the back? Does it matter? Let’s keep it moving…)

Being in Harlem, heading to a college to engage with young people impacted by my writing. That’s some crazy shit.

Less than two years ago, I sat in a prison dorm with 50 men, wondering if I was getting out any time soon. Even if I got out, I had nowhere to go. I had no idea how I’d make money. I had nothing.

I daydreamed of the adventures I’d have on the hard, cold streets of New York. Sleeping and bumming on the subway. Fighting off vagrants who want a piece of my orange. Living in homeless shelters. (Yeah, yeah, I glamorized it. What else you gonna do? It was happening and there was no reason to look at it realistically. Besides, far as a brotha was concerned, anything was better than lockup.)

But sitting on this train (yeah, I’m on the train now; keep up!), I can’t believe how far I’ve come from that (no pun intended) train of thought.

I’ve done a decent job of (re)establishing myself as a writer. If anything, I’m doing better than before prison. Over the last year, I’ve spoken at SUNY New Paltz, moderated a virtual forum for Re/Creation, was recently awarded the position of Writer-in-Residence with that same group of wonderful people, and I’ve reconnected with the family I’d basically lost during incarceration.

No longer am I relegated to walking the same halls and pathways inside the wall. I will never again hear the words “on the chow” (thank God!). I’ve rid myself of any clothes that come close to green. My world is no longer COs, disaffected clinicians, makeshift programs, sleeping on flat, hard cots with no pillow (pillows were a luxury available at only certain facilities it seems).

Today, I head for a college to promote myself as writer and advocate.

I’ve struggled with my past a long time. It’s a battle that likely will never go away.

But it gets better. Three years ago I couldn’t imagine I’d have a home. That I’d make new friends (I say honestly, I haven’t had a “friend” in many years. Curiously, prison instilled in me a greater sense of community and socialization.) Taking full advantage of prison to learn has driven in me a desire not to just be successful, but to do something about being successful. (There’s a big difference.) And the belief and confidence for me I’ve seen in others … well, do I need to say more?

For many months (many long months) after release, I had a recurring dream. Found myself back on the other side of the wall. I panic. Unable to figure out what’s going on, I run into walls and spin in circles trying to get out, trying to get someone to tell me what I did, what’s going on. I never get an answer. My blood freezes as I realize I once again let the people I love down. I languish like a wet baby left alone on a frigid concrete floor.

And I’d bolt awake, the terror coursing through my chilled veins. I might be cold-sweating. I’m flush with fear and blinding anxiety. I’d look at the woman lying next to me and remind myself “just a dream.” That everything was okay. The comfort never came right away though. I have to ease into it.

I’d gone without the dream for months. Hadn’t forgotten it. I just didn’t have it. I was getting my life together, being with my family, jumping out of an airplane and planning the next big adventure (bobsledding!).

Then, a few days ago, I had the dream. Stood in a damp, grey, pissy-colored dorm, surrounded by cubicles containing human beings accepting the fact they weren’t going anywhere until the state gave us permission. And I didn’t know why I was there.

Curiously, butterflies and bowling balls didn’t pulse and burst in my chest. I felt no sense of confusion or doom over upending everyone’s life with irrational, self-destructive actions that demonstrated my self-absorption and irresponsibility.

No. This time I simply looked around. Men in drab colors sitting on bunks and playing chess and laughing as if there were a good time to be had if you remained positive. I took it all in. And I said to myself: This isn’t real. I must be dreaming because I don’t belong here. I haven’t done anything.

I knew the only thing left to do was wake up.

I did. But there was no fear or sweating or temp drop in my bloodstream. In fact, it would be a minute before I remembered the dream. I smiled before going back to sleep.

I think about that as my train rolls toward Westchester. Does that dream signify how far I’ve come as much as the college engagement does? I still beat myself up about my past, probably won’t stop any time soon. And I tend to downplay my accomplishments (my friend Carolina Soto just shakes her head when I do that). But maybe I’m getting closer to accepting my past with the understanding it doesn’t have to define me. A concept I both believe and disbelieve…

I sit in the parking lot in White Plains (keep up!), waiting for John to pull up in his Prius. Heading to a college event where my work is being presented. In December, I’ll be on a panel of formerly incarcerated people and social justice reformers that will be broadcast around the globe. We’ll discuss the carceral apparatus and how our craft and collaboration has been beneficial to what we do now.

Look at me. Writer, father, grandfather, activist, public speaker. Sitting on a train going back to my family in the city.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Prisoner K was a member of the first cohort of the first workshop John facilitated at Rikers Island. He was recently released from his sentence in an upstate facility, and is a working technical writer. He values his and his family’s privacy and like John has read Kafka’s The Trial, thus the pseudonym.