Rabid Sharks
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Prison Blog

In which Possum recounts his experiences as an offender in the system.

Possum Bones is autistic. He has identified as a dirty kid in the past, and he’s attended multiple rainbow gatherings. He has several years left to serve in the Washington Correctional system.

He has been making art since he could sit up. He communicates better in writing than speech. If you are interested in the experience of an autistic person doing prison time, check out his Prison Blog. If you are a fan of comic art, underground/outsider music, Lovecraft, Clarke Ashton Smith, Murakami, Cixui Liu, etc.

Blog #4

I wake to the sound of the palette in the sliding metal door slamming open.  I pull the towel back down over my eyes and lay down until I hear the tray of sewer-gray oatmeal and sour bead slam onto the pallet.  I get up solemnly, cursing Uncle Sam, and scoop the oatmeal into a plastic bowel, place the bread, jelly and sugar in another.  I mix commissary oatmeal inc.to the gray slop to flavor it.  Then I put it under my bed for later and lie back down to sleep.  The C.O. asks if I'm coming out of my cell this morning.  I say no.  I place my head on my illegal second blanket that I use for a pillow and escape, just for awhile, the fascist nightmare that I live in.  Even if they released me tomorrow, I'm a marked man now.  Other governments won't let me in, Uncle Sam owns me, his human plowshare until the day my cancer-filled heart sees fit to send me to my final rest. 

I wake again to the sound of my door sliding open, a noise like a trash compactor.  It's 3:00. My a lawyer might come to see me soon, I have to wake up.  So I pull out my earplugs and pour instant coffee into a plastic cup full of cold water.  I swallow mood stabilizers.  I wash the coating off of 3 small salmon-colored pills, crush them with the butt of my roll-on, pour the powder onto a playing card.  I put another playing card on top in case someone walks by my cell.  Then I snort a painful amount of caustic hcl salt, fillers, and binders.  Every night I contemplate suicide, embrace my imperfect life and vow to hang on like a louse to the hair of life to suck the blood out of a vast system I can't hope to bring down,  Every morning I don't want to get out of bed.  There's not much reason: there are no educational programs, social interaction is risky and stressful...most of the time I stay in my room.  I read, write, and draw. When I get antsy from sitting, I pace back and forth for hours at a time and do pushups. 

 

Elisa Carlson