Dear Mom,
 
I haven’t been writing as often since we were given access to the telephone, but there are some things I feel more comfortable putting on paper. As you know, I’ve always been able to express myself more clearly and easily in writing, and even more so now after so many years of having no other way to communicate my thoughts and feelings with the outside world.
 
So rather than talk on the phone, I put pen to paper. I put pen to paper because I have never felt more alone than right now and I’m absolutely miserable. I have been here for 17 years now, rotting away day by day, little by little. Although I’m sentenced to die I am doing a life sentence as I await the time when my death at the hands of the State may or may not be carried out. As time continues to pass, I find myself wondering how much longer this can possibly go on. How many more years of existing inside this crypt of concrete and steel before the State finally decides to grant me my final release? All I know is that I wake each morning beneath the ever-looming specter of death but have no idea when Death will claim me, or whether it will come at the end of a needle or some other way. This is torture. I’m not engaging in hyperbole and I don’t use this word lightly. No, the prison guards aren’t beating me; I’m not being shocked or waterboarded. This is a much more subtle and insidious form of torture. This is existing in a state of limbo day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, watching the face in the mirror slowly age as I fight to maintain some semblance of sanity here in this forsaken land of the insane. This is not torture of my body; this is torture of the mind, of the heart and of the soul.
 
During my time here I’ve tried hard to do the right thing. Sure, I’ve made some missteps along the way. I’ve had the minor disciplinary infraction here and there, but for the most part I’ve been as close to a “model prisoner” as one could expect. I don’t get into fights; I don’t assault fellow prisoners or staff. You don’t have to worry about that. Not because I’m trying to “game the system” as the prosecutor at my trial would surely claim – even after all these years—but because that’s not who I am. That’s not the man I’ve grown to be. I’m a flawed man, a bit screwed up in the head sometimes, but I do the best I can because I am better than my worst mistake.
 
Yet I feel alone and miserable. I’m depressed. I feel I have nothing to live for, nothing in this world to look forward to but death. Why do I feel this way?
 
I feel this way because I have virtually no support from the outside world, no one I can count on to stand by my side during this grave, life or death, situation. Over the past few years you have become increasingly distant. There have been more and more instances where you have told me you would do something and haven’t followed through. Despite repeated promises, visits from you have stopped almost completely. You tell me you want to order the quarterly care packages we are allowed to receive, but you don’t do it. You tell me you will put funds in my account so I can purchase hygiene items and phone time, but you don’t do it. Something always seems to come up. I receive no cards or letters and have all but given up on mail call. I’ve moved beyond the feelings of pain, letdown, and disappointment, and no longer even get my hopes up as I know no one will take the time to write me.
 
It is not my intention to seem demanding or accusatory. I fully understand that you have work, medical appointments, bills to pay, and other obligations and responsibilities to fulfill. Life out there isn’t easy and I don’t want to be another burden for you to carry. What I’m asking you to understand is that life in here isn’t easy either. It is a constant never-ending struggle, and I need your love and support now more than ever. I need to be able to count on you, to know that when nothing else is certain in my life, your love is rock solid.
 
I love you and hope you will think about what I’ve said here. Please write me soon.
 
                                                                                                                Your son,
 
                                                                                                                Tim

Up until three months ago our telephone access on North Carolina’s death row was limited to one 10 minute phone call a year (collect only) and emergency situations where a family member was hospitalized – and that “favor” would be dependent upon the benevolence and availability of a chaplain. Even then the chaplain would first verify if it was an immediate family member and if he or she was really sick or injured or dead and in the hospital. The collect call was monitored and the emergency call degrading enough to be prohibitive. Both made using the phone awkward at best. Why call at all you might wonder? Because sometimes it’s really good to hear a person’s voice even if only briefly.
 
This all changed in June when the administration decided death row would have regular access to phones like regular population prisoners. On each of the 8 cell blocks a single metal phone was bolted to the wall looking much like the lonely oasis in the middle of a long dark highway with not a town or passerby for many miles.
 
It took some time to accustom myself to this retro technology. I called my mom first, struggling to talk and watch the block, and feeling guilty I was drawing her voice into this place. Before our annual phone calls were made in an office, now they were on the block where arguments over the latest TMZ news or a shouting match can break out at will. Getting comfortable with the idea of calling people grew easier, but this did not increase my desire to make phone calls and “chat”. First, I’m not really a chatty type, and second, phone calls cost money: either the person I’m calling collect, or the person who is kind enough to put money in my JPAY account to purchase minutes from the canteen.
 
What I have discovered with the phone is its utilitarian purpose. No longer do I need to worry about not hearing from my parents or friends. No longer do I need to sweat the mail waiting for a response from my academic advisor on some school-related problem. She is just a phone call away.
 
The potential of the phones didn’t really sink in for me, but others were ablaze with ideas for reaching out in ways never before conceived. Death row is such an isolated and misperceived concept the public has only crime drama narratives to understand who is here and what it’s like to live in this place. For those of us living in this hell, it’s incredibly frustrating to know an entirely different reality than the one played out in the media and not be able to contest the truth of those claims. The phones and LIFE LINES provide such an opportunity.
 
www.facebook.com/lifelinesjournal
www.twitter.com/_life_lines
www.soundcloud.com/lifelinesjournal
 
Life Lines is an audio journal for the 147 men and 3 women on North Carolina’s death row. Created by Duke University graduates Chris Agoranos and Lars Akerson, Life Lines is an automated app that records the spoken stories or poems of those on death row who want an opportunity to be heard without the varnish of a newspaper or court reporter. A chance to change the narrative and give voice to our humanity even as the State attempts to silence it forever.
 
Life Lines began as a project on Kickstarter and managed to raise its goal of $16,000 in under a month, with the money to go toward covering start-up costs and maintenance of an official website for a year. This will also help pay for the calls made to record our stories.
 
If Life Lines is a success there may even be a podcast in the future, but that depends on the public’s willingness to listen. There will be three new stories or poems selected from the pool and made available each week, with the official website slated to open in November 2016.

When I was charged with capital murder they house me on Four-High, a cell block in the county jail reserved for juvenile and mentally ill inmates awaiting transport to the other institutions, check offs, trouble makers, and defendants who faced the death penalty. It seldom contained more than twenty inmates, though capacity was twenty-four, and for several months in 1998 there were only eight. The block seemed empty and sterile, but only just.
 
Less than a year into 23 hour a day solitary confinement my grip on reality deteriorated to the point where death seemed a better alternative than life. There was something about the idea of death and total isolation that eclipsed the future like a tsunami on the horizon. It blighted all hope that tomorrow would be a better day. Tomorrow only brought uncertainty, fear and despair.
 
I spoke with a few guys on the block every now and then, learning a little about them. Four of us faced the death penalty. J-Will, the only juvenile among us, was looking at life for murder. The kid was wild and angry, as if his inner animal ruled. He seemed unable or unwilling to chill out despite a bunch of meds, but I couldn’t blame him since we all suffered in some way. Most of us internalized what was being done to us, whereas he made his pain into a weapon, banging it on the door or commode or screaming in a rage.
 
Four-High might as well have been the jail’s mental ward. Richard, a pasty looking middle-aged man, awaited a plea bargain after having his death sentence and conviction overturned for prosecutorial misconduct. He thought, very seriously, there were listening devices in the air ducts and refused to talk above a whisper lest the jailors hear him. During his hour of rec he skittered around the dayroom speaking to a few people in a hoarse mutter, then he hurried through a shower and back into his cell. He rarely used the phone.
 
Choppy seemed normal, but could be as rambunctious and violent as J-Will. He faced 127 years for a string of robberies, assaults and shootings. Because he refused to cooperate with the D.A. and his co-defendant was testifying against him, Choppy took his aggression out on the jailors. The only time he wasn’t angry was when he teased Richard for his paranoia and effeminate ways. Choppy would go so far as singing, “Mary had a little lamb” or reciting “Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?” whenever Richard came out for rec. Though Richard tried to laugh it off in his usual “aww shucks” manner it was obvious the teasing got to him—especially when everyone called him Mary.
 
At times the interplay between the two was entertaining, then reality closed the door on any amusement. Rod and Jimmy also faced the death penalty and both were loony in the way a lot of time in solitary confinement makes crazy people a lot crazier. Rod passed his time making animal noises, talking to himself or wrestling with his mattress. Jimmy sang, clapped and danced to imaginary music day and night. I don’t think he slept.
 
My issues were more self-destructive. One day I stopped eating, fed up with the bland, meager food. Self-hatred gnawed at my stomach and after a week it became this leaden weight that complimented my constant depression. I grieved for the victims, my wasted life and the loss of liberty. There were only the familiar cracks in the wall, a meaningless roadmap with one exit.
 
I wanted to die.
 
One evening after the midnight count, I stripped a sheet from my bank and tore it in half lengthwise. One end I tied to the bar over the window, the other I tied around my neck in a slipknot. Because the window was so high I rolled up my mattress and stood on it, took a deep breath and let it out, then kicked the mattress to the floor. As the full weight of my body jerked to the end of the sheet I swung once to the left and right. My bare feet flailed against the wall as I choked, then the sheet ripped, dropping me to the metal bunk. I lay there for a few minutes catching my break and massaging a burned throat, disappointed, but determined to kill myself.
 
The next day during rec I walked out of my cell and ignored Richard’s prattle, J-Will’s banging and Rod’s rooster impression. I climbed the stairs with my soap and towel in hand as if heading to the shower, but stood at the rail when I got to the top tier. From the top rail it was 25 feet to the concrete. I got on top of it and jumped.
 
Even in my emotionally wretched state a deep-seated need to survive forced my hands and feet out in front of me, turning a headlong dive into a half-assed roll. The fall didn’t knock me unconscious, but I felt as an insect might when it smacks into the windshield of a speeding car. It was incredibly painful, but more than that was the utter shame and defeat of another failure in a life full of them. There would be no easy escape.
 
My high-flying act was punished by the jailors. It wasn’t that I violated any rule against self-harm so much as caused a lot of paperwork with a trip to the hospital for x-rays and a cast. Upon my return I was stripped naked and shackled to a bunk in an empty cell. With the A/C on high the cell was frigid. Several hours later a folded paper gown slid beneath the door, it was to be my only covering for the next three weeks.
 
Days later a shrink stopped by the cell block. He didn’t care what my problems were and refused to answer me unless I prefaced a statement with “sir” or “Dr. LeStrange”. He was there to determine if I represented a threat to the safety and security of the jail, asking me repeatedly whether I still wanted to die. My answers were terse and noncommittal because I knew it didn’t matter what I told him, Dr. LeStrange was not there to help me, and would make certain I stayed naked.
 
During my hour of rec they shackled me to a table near the phone or handcuffed me in the shower while a guard watched me wash. If I refused to shower they threatened to use a fire hose, which wasn’t an idle threat because I saw it done to a Mexican kid the year before. I ate because the alternative was a feeding tube. They watched me day and night to be sure I hadn’t discovered some surreptitious way to commit suicide.
 
As miserable as the situation was, the shock and pain of the fall cleared my mind of any delusions regarding death, my confinement, or escaping fate. I would face what was to come. Choppy and Richard visited during their rec periods, teasing me about the paper gown and thumb-spike cast on my wrist. J-Will even dropped by, saying “Man, you’re crazy! I didn’t think you’d do it, then you go flying through the air and WHAM! You looked just like a frog. Except they land better.” I could only laugh.
 
It was an odd place to feel a sense of comradery, but it helped to know I was not alone. We were to be tried for our lives, removed from society as if we never mattered, despite our shared humanity. It hurts to think of being cast off like so much trash, but since my time on Four-High I’ve come to understand that I am not alone and this has helped me to remain strong through the toughest of times.

The loneliest chair in the room
Is the one sitting far to the left.
As it faced an inevitable doom
Of opinion, silent, of rights bereft.
 
Slumping in that puddle of dark
Quivered the most callow of youths.
He gaped at the box as if to remark
Upon a number of twisted truths.
 
Except, the Jabberwock stalked the aisle
Unfurling its wings and displaying fearsome teeth.
It roared, slavered, clawed and pounced--
Many a prey had so ended underneath.
 
There were no warnings of the Jabberwock
With its diabolical lies and reptilian weep
It bellowed, “End this murderer’s clock!
So we can all go home and sleep!”
 
A round of applause from the mome raths
Their minds noxious with not.
They sat in the box and ruminated
On a verdict of acquittal? I think not.
 
“That chair is reserved for the guilty!”
Cried the borogroves in a righteous lather
“Let the Thirteenth enslave the filthy
For no other reason does this Court gather.”
 
The loneliest chair in the room
Is the one sitting far to the left.
As it faced an inevitable doom
Of opinion, silent, of life bereft.
 
 
 
This poem was created based upon the creative writing prompt to write a poem based upon one of our favorite poems. Mine happened to be “The Jabberwocky” from Lewis Carol’s “Through the Looking Glass”. As you can imagine The Loneliest Chair is the defendant’s chair in the courtroom at a capital trial. At no other place can I think of a more desolate point in time.

The analogy is obvious, so much so that it seems trite to make the comparison. Yet, nothing better describes what it's like to be imprisoned, stripped of the ability to explore the complex sensations, sights, sounds, and scents of the outside world. The mere idea of such expansive freedom brings drool past the lip.. It's only a thought though, one dimensional and brief, without any anchor in reality. Rather, memories of such liberty are the detritus of the past rolling across the floor like dust bunnies, shed to collect in cracks and corners of the concrete. Best left forgotten.

It's easy to forget the link that makes me human is the same one dividing me from the community and putting me behind a fence. Inside of this pen my days are like that of any dog. Whenever it's time to eat the glands in my mouth secrete saliva in a Pavlovian response to the call for chow.. Chow, what a disgusting word that brings images of flies feasting on uneaten, unclean morsels discarded on the floor and tables. Filth and grime and . . . I loathe it and this very human thought ends with a curled lip and silent snarl.

Gone is the link and it's back to the cage. The difference between whether I am treated as a man or beast is ephemeral -- sometimes it reminds, teases, and torments -- then it doesn't. Is this how a scent rides the wind? Here, then not. There again in stinging, pungent clarity -- no. That is another odor, a different stench.

When they open the door to the yard, my pulse quickens. Exercise . . .playtime. Barking and chasing squirrels, snapping at birds and cats, growling at other mutts and sniffing other curs like me. There is only the desire to expend as much energy as possible until my tongue hangs and breath pants. For a moment there is no comprehension of "I", no separateness or isolation, only an increasing need to run as fast and far as my legs will allow. Until they call me back in. Come back. Back inside or you will not be fed. Back to the cage where there is no running or tail wagging or even a half-remembered pat on the head. Or the ultimate: a belly rub..

There are no belly rubs or bones to gnaw in this place for bad dogs, abandoned and neglected dogs. There is only sitting, laying standing, pacing, and waiting in this place that stinks of emptiness and hate. What awaits us besides punishment and reproof? Adoption? Escape? No, something dark awaits and there is no way to understand what it is. Many have been taken against their will. A leash had to be used, their hind legs dragging down a corridor smelling of fear and despair. Some whine, others growl and bite, but as I sit on death row it is my fate to contemplate how much in common I have with a dog in a kennel. Won't somebody save us?

Is the hole torture? This was asked of me several months ago in a ten minute writing exercise and the response I gave was disjointed and confused. There have been times in solitary where it felt like torture, but at others it was not so noticeable. After 17 years of imprisonment as an adult, the hole has taken on different meanings in my life. I try to avoid it, but prison is a place full of pitfalls and even the smartest or wiliest get pushed into the hole. It's a fact of life you prepare for and harden yourself against much like a car accident -- it's all about damage control.

The first time I experienced solitary confinement was a 2 week stint at the Maine Youth Center when I was 16. After stealing a disposable Bic razor from a staff member's desk a kid try to earn a home pass caught me and told staff. As punishment for the theft I was taken to a darkened row of cells that stank of mildew and cleaning chemicals. They stripped me of everything but my underwear and slammed the door shut. There were no books, magazines, television, or radio and my only relief from the monotony came in the form of self-mutilation with sharp rocks, singing half-remembered songs from school and church, and defiance. They were two very long weeks but enduring the hole as a teen was more like a scary right of passage, one that clings like a nightmare.

A year later, back at the youth center for running from a cop and violating my probation, they put me in the hole for a month because I dared to flee. This time the hole was harder because I knew just enough to understand the guards were not my friends. They in turn proved this by shutting off the lights during the day and serving meals at varying times. Showers and our 1 hour of rec out of the cell were sporadic. One kid tried to kill himself, and because he was unsuccessful, was tormented by staff for his failure. This was in 1995.

By the time I was charged with capital murder in 1997 my familiarity with the hole prepared me for the twenty months I would spend on 23 hour lock down at the county jail. The time became the hardest of my life for more reasons than being confined in a cell. Though I had access to books and magazines the emotional impact of being charged with murder, the doubts and suspicions of friends and family, and the thought of spending the rest of my life in this tiny space broke me.

I grew so angry during this period I punched the steel mirror upon seeing my reflection, or the wall wishing it would crumble. My hands stayed swollen a lot. I cried for the lives that had been lost -- including my own. Eventually I tried suicide, and when failure brought me back to the same cell I died inside. The cell became an extension of my thoughts and they ended in its cold corners.

I have not spent years in the hole like some of my friends, but the signs of their long ordeal are apparent. Everyone I know of who has spent a minimum of two years in solitary confinement displays some form of dysfunctional behavior. Obsessive cleaning, sleeping fully clothed, talking to themselves, fits of rage --whatever it is they do we prisoners as a group can tell who has left a part of their mind in the hole. Even the most defiant can break eventually.
Yes, the hole is torture, but the asker already knew that, and so did the people who designed the practice and implemented its use in the penal system. The question that needs to be asked is: why is the hole still used if we know it's torture?