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.

3/16/20

“For lo the shadows of a gaol untold do grow about our days now many fold”

I stopped writing for the blog for a long time. This is now a prison blog rather than a jail blog. I would hesitate to discuss specifics too much but for some context this is being written on a 16x24 hardboard panel on top of my religious items box (which contains my tarot cards and homemade Magic the Gathering cards) with a 17mm mechanical pencil, as I sit on the top bunk of a cell inside a certain minimum security prison. Everything’s been kind of hectic but one of the main things preventing me from writing has been having to live with another person and having more stuff to do to distract myself. It seems that, the more I talk, the less I write. It is my opinion that the latter is a preferable activity. Talking usually leads to feelings of frustration for me.

I will point out that I’m in prison during the COVID outbreak but have nothing more to say on the matter. The library is shut down which sucks. Recently I finished reading “A Wild Sheep chase” by Haruki Murakami. Hence the quote of the poem quoted in the book above this entry.

I have some paper-bound journals but if I’m to send this out I don’t want to be slicing my journal. I think I should be writing fiction maybe in them but I’m gonna start by just making writing a habit again. I got so much done in jail, I almost miss the isolation because it helped inspire me.

Now that I have a cellmate I’m aware that I apparently scream in my sleep. Some inmates are very superstitious about why people that have killed someone do this. It’s apparently common. They say it is the spirit of the one who died a violent death: because of you they cannot rest, so they prevent you from resting also while you are alive. I think this is interesting but can’t allow myself to believe it is true.

I’m about to write some pathetic, melodramatic crap but maybe it’ll make me feel better. I had a certain interaction today. It reminded me I’ve forgotten my [mantra?] from jail. I think, other people do this but they are more able to remain in denial. I am a genuine person, and can’t. So I have to always [remain?] myself. I might call people ‘friends’ to avoid them thinking me an asshole, so I can remain on good terms with them and enjoy social trivialities. But really, they are all crackheads and I must never share anything because, intentionally or not, they perceive this as something to be exploited. Therefore by my definition they are not friends. I must always remind myself of this. An autistic person can’t truly be friends with a neurotypical, especially not in prison — the neurotypical has too much of a social advantage. It’s just not equal footing. I never understand people’s feelings and so I never know what’s fair, so I’m always either the bad guy or the loser who the fab’s on, the joke. I would like to think that's just prison but ultimately, thinking back, it’s kind of true in retrospect of relationships I’ve had with people in the past. Not that all those people were bad people, many of them had good intentions. It’s just that because I’m autistic, I can’t truly benefit from a relationship the way a normal person can. Or, at least, I’m far less likely to. It’s like a rogue trying to fill the niche of a fighter: it’s possible, but the fighter will always be a better meat shield, so the rogue’s skill points are better spent on something else. In a similar way, I’m so much better off working on things by myself than I am, trying to cooperate. It’s at solitary and introspective or competitive activities that I excel. Investing emotional capital outside myself always leads to disappointment.

Of course I’ve also learned that I share enough DNA with the human species that I can’t seem to resist the urge to fraternize at least a little, but it’s definitely something I’m better off not engaging in too much. The humans are the enemy.

Elisa Carlson