It can either break or make you, and the breaks are, you know, you're just going to be broken,
physically and mentally.
Oh, I haven't seen a tree or a plant since 2003.
The only thing that I've seen is a spider in the corner, and I find them little bugs sometimes,
and I feed the spider. That's about the only closest thing to nature I have.
It's not to the point where you want to commit suicide.
Sometimes I'm at the point where I'd be wanting to write to the judge and say,
just give me the death penalty. Just give me the death penalty, man.
We're in our cell 22 and a half hours a day, and then our yard is just breaking walls.
I'm not able to go out to a yard and be with other people,
but I'm not able to see things around me, whether it's trees, grass, birds,
to talk to my family, to get sunlight.
You got people in here that's been in solitary confinement longer than I've been alive.
If you could put every emotion of the human spirit,
of hopelessness, pain, agony, hatred, frustration,
a sense of continuous silently screaming,
all these emotions, and while you're locked in this cage treated like some animal,
most people wouldn't even treat an animal like that.
An animal who was suffering pain,
they would take him to the vet and do something for him.
I gotta take a lot of deep breaths before I came in here.
Just being around people, it's not awkward, it's a good feeling,
but it's still an anxiety feeling because I haven't been,
it's like, wow, I'm around free people, I'm around regular people.
This is a behavior modification, psychological,
a low intensity warfare against the mind of a human being.
That's what exists here at Pelican Bay.
It's the same thing day in and day out.
We're just psyching ourselves out to make the best of the day.
It's kind of robotic.
Have you just spoke to a hundred guys today?
It's the same thing I get up in the morning,
I wash up, I drink my coffee, I get up, I brush my teeth,
I drink some coffee, I brush my teeth,
I clean the cell, I clean the scene,
I just wait at the floor, the walls.
You do certain things just to fill up that time.
Where you can hear the vent and you focus on it,
like, man, did I just hear a whisper right now?
And the person starts focusing on this little noise
because the noises and the vision are the senses,
and that's what we have to constantly survive.
But if I had a window to look out,
I think that the Q-mire we have for now,
I'd be sitting in that window.
Yes, I committed a crime to come to prison,
but don't make the assumption that my current situation here
being Pelican Bay Shoe is due to my continuous criminal behavior
because I had grown that a long time ago.
Humankind has a history of ugliness,
and humankind also has a history of beauty.
It's in all of us, and you need laws to have a society
not going to chaos.
Ultimately, people have the ability to look at what is bad and good
in a way that is not insulting, not aggressive,
not with bullets, through psychology,
creating a better understanding of each other.
Everybody deserves a chance.
Thank you for taking your time to hear my voice
because our voices are rarely heard.
Thank you.
