Writing My Wrongs
Leo Cardez
CLF member, incarcerated in IL
There is nothing exactly like living in Hell, but there is something close to it: jail and prison. In my hell, where I lived for most of 2015, there is, as Dante understood, no hope. People think the worst part of being locked up is the loss of freedom. They are wrong. The worst part is the loss of hope and purpose. You wake up every morning realizing your nightmare will continue into your waking hours. The loss you have suffered is permanent. Life will never be the same. In many real ways you are already dead, just unburied. There is no healing, no improvement, but even worse, there is no possibility of any to come. The most unbearable thing about your unbearable life is that you will always be forced to bear it.
In the midst of my horrific incarceration experience, alone and desperate to stop hemorrhaging relationships, I wondered if those who hated me were watching somehow they might find my misery satisfying? I might have, if I believed everything that was said about me. On a particularly dark evening, I considered doing
just that. I doubted anyone could despise me more than I did myself —
I couldn’t even stand my own reflection. But one can only fall so deep into the well before being consumed by the darkness. I admit, I considered the coward’s solution, but in writing my final note, I could not find the right words to convey the magnitude of what I was feeling. I refused to settle and postponed my act of desperation another night. Night after night I tried, but there were no words big enough… Instead, I found myself simply journaling about my day.
I wrote about everything and nothing, whatever popped into my head. My only rule was raw honesty. I figured if this was to mean anything to anyone it must above all be true. I didn’t realize honest writing will tear your guts out. Like when I wrote about the shame and pain I saw in my mother’s eyes when she came to visit me in prison — knowing it was my fault, and worse,
I could do nothing to help her. That feeling of helplessness was like being stuck in a barrel at the bottom of the ocean with no options. There is nothing worse.
Still I wrote. Everyday. I wrote by the light of the morning sun through my dirty cracked window or glare of the hallway lights through my cell bars. I promised myself I would write every day, no excuses… and I have. Now, 7 years later, I have learned that writing to me wasn’t a diversion, it was my church. It offered salvation in the promise of change. Escaping Hell is difficult because sometimes there are too many people who enjoy seeing you there, but with enough effort, grace; and in my case, pens and paper, it can be done.
As I re-read some of my earliest journal entries, I marvel at the flawed, petty, unhappy person I was. I also noticed that as my writing evolved into a more positive realm, so did my actual life. My writing became prophetic. As I tried to make the best of things, every now and then, I succeeded. As I look around today I can see that writing has helped me appreciate life in a whole new light.
When my parents wrote to tell me they were proud of me, even as I sat in prison, I am not ashamed to admit: I wept. I cried again after my sister’s last visit, seeing her changed and beautiful from the inside out; having found what she had been searching for, though not in the places she had been looking. I owe all of it to the power of the written word. It has taught me how to look inward in order to look forward. It has provided me with the key to an escape hatch to the next chapter of my life.
- Convict Chronicles: the stories that save us - December 10, 2023
- Writing My Wrongs - September 1, 2023
