How Writing Helped Me Survive Prison
By Edward Belton
I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but sometime early in my incarceration more than twenty years ago, I made the decision to become a writer. I’d never met another inmate author at the time, or even heard of one for that matter. It wasn’t a case of reaching any lofty goals or of being published, not back then. Simply put, I wrote because I had to. Remorse and regret overwhelmed me. Depression threatened my sanity, and writing was how I coped. Raw emotion erupted onto the pages as my heart poured forth in the prose I created. Writing gave me peace, offered me a sense of purpose, and provided a means by which to articulate my thoughts and feelings. It was, and is, my therapy.
The foundation of my craft is rooted in spoken word, lyrical poetry—the creative outlet where my writing journey began and where I honed an early understanding of sentence structure and word flow. I soon delved deeper into my tumultuous past and troubled childhood, and next wrote my life story. The therapeutic value of that undertaking can’t be overstated.
Fifteen years ago, I took another leap and began my first novel. I am a storyteller. I have always been a storyteller. This truth became clear the moment I gave voices to that initial cast of characters jockeying for position inside my head. The plot unfolded easily from the very beginning. The process felt right, even though I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and oddly that ignorance eased me into a steady groove. I wrote freely and instinctually without restraint. I am an avid reader, and the number of books I’d devoured prior to writing one myself provided mile markers and reference points by which I measured my progress. The countless hours I’d spent hunched over a tiny steel desk writing poetry and penning my autobiography had built in me the self-discipline required to endure the rigors and time-consuming sacrifices necessary to complete a full-length novel—by hand.
Access to computers is largely nonexistent in prison, and the internet isn’t available to inmates aside from a filtered system of supervised emails and news stories on institutional tablets. Resources for typing and conversion of handwritten manuscripts into word documents can be extremely costly. Impossible for most inmate authors.
The first draft of my debut novel was, well…rough. Most all first drafts are, and my inexperience clearly shown through. But something happened along the way. The more I devoted myself to the craft, the more I fell in love with writing. That sense of peace and purpose further enveloped me. Doors opened. Opportunities presented themselves and assisted me on my quest. I met a former school teacher who taught me about the proper use of language. An outside volunteer offered to edit, type, and design the cover of my life story. My aunt read my poetry at several public functions, with positive reviews. I finally met and spoke with an inmate author—proof it could be done. Publications on the art of writing found their way into my hands, including various writer’s guides, books and magazines—tools imperative to me, then and now.
Prison is limited in resources of every kind, particularly research outlets. My go-to for random information is often a paperback World Almanac. Necessary supplies aren’t always easy to come by, either. A single legal pad costs $1.50, and another fifty cents per disposable ink pen. Meanwhile, the average inmate wage ranges from forty cents to $1.00 a day. My prison job is one of the better ones, at fifty cents an hour. A forty-hour week nets me twenty dollars.
Over the course of my writing journey I’ve handwritten, rewritten and revised well over a million words. From those early poems to short stories, a play script, a children’s book, and currently my eighth novel. Thousands of pages. More legal pads and ink pens than I can count.
My days off work are largely spent hunched over yet another tiny steel desk in my cell, pen in hand as I continue to hone my craft. Distractions sometimes persist and make it difficult to concentrate. Prisons are at times loud and disruptive, with no shortage of perpetuated disturbances and violence. Loneliness and despair permeate the atmosphere. Institutional shakedowns often disregard an inmate’s personal property, and the risk constantly exists of my intellectual work being lost or destroyed.
Several years ago, as I was into my second novel, a friend introduced me to someone on the outside whose career path led her from practicing law to college professor and published author many times over. She and I sparked a quick friendship, and she has been my writing coach and mentor ever since. Her amazing talent, expertise, and selfless sacrifice on my behalf have been invaluable to my growth and maturity as a writer.
I tell people, “My writing is a gift.” On the surface it may seem as though I’m referring to the sort of gift others might enjoy as they read a particular piece I’ve written. While I certainly hope that’s true, the gift I’m referring to is my own. Writing sustains me. It is my anchor in this ongoing, seemingly endless storm so many of my peers are often caught in, trapped by the undercurrent of their dangerous and raucous behaviors.
I recently wrote, directed, and played the lead role in our facility’s annual Christmas play—a story of redemption and realizing one’s worth. The response was incredible. The crowd of inmates, community volunteers and institutional staff cheered and applauded throughout the production. The guys and I took our bow and were swarmed by members of the audience, eager to congratulate us. A number of the guests asked me to sign their programs.
Perhaps I have found my calling. Maybe at last, my life is on the write track.
As my experiences as a writer have grown, so have my hopes and expectations. These days I very much aspire to those lofty goals I at first wasn’t aware of. But that isn’t why I write. I write because I have to. Same as before. Same as always.
I am a storyteller, after all.
Listen
By Edward Belton
These are our stories being told—Listen.
Can’t ya’ picture the chrome plated steel glistening in our sons’ hands,
or the irreplaceable innocence that our daughters are missing?
Now, for them will you listen?
Drugs being sold as lies to lives already been twisted.
Babies crying from hunger but Mom can’t listen,
the tales of her lifestyle snitchin’ with just one look at her empty kitchen.
No fatherly attention ‘cause Daddy’s in prison,
and so the streets take over and now children are stealin’.
I must be trippin’, or at least on the verge,
‘cause all I see is a surge of violence emerge.
And these are our role models?
Lives of saturated hate fill a void of misplaced mental states,
and the “I wanna be like him” is all that our kids can think.
While all along we pray for their fates from behind these gates,
and from our mistakes try and reach their hearts before it’s too late.
When will we stand up and be true?
Why must we wait until the cuffs are in place,
before we ever even realize all that’s at stake?
That high school kid with so much to give,
destined for greatness until destiny stepped in.
Unprotected sex and peer pressure to fit in and win,
skeletons surrounded by loose skin.
So high they can’t even see the disease,
their bodies distorted from the sickness within.
These are our children—our futures.
These are our friends dying in the streets we lived in.
What starts out as a trend to see who’s best,
becomes strife over money amongst those who used to be friends.
One thing leads to whatever in the name of respect,
then the dust settles and all that remains is prison and death.
Those closest ones to you already been sentenced and bled,
and when they’re gone the only things left are for our rivers of tears to be shed,
and our loyalty kept with their tattooed memorials we inscribe in our flesh.
You think it’s a game—then step up and get next!
In this life there’s always room to be blessed,
always a situation to stress,
someone to love and…someone to miss.
And always,
there’s always room in two places to bed.
That’s locked away and dead—are you listening yet?
If education is the key, then humility and honor need be the text,
discipline and self-worth we need achieve,
and by these means define the goals impressed upon our personal crests.
We must pass down the love that we so often missed,
to these…our sons, our daughters, our friends.
Man, the reality of this generation is screaming for us to hear them.
Listen,
‘cause if we don’t, we’ll never break this reigning chain of events…
Soldier’s Anthem
I pledge allegiance to the past from which I’ve came,
and to the republic of this one man,
as alone I stand under God for all to blame.
One life forever stained,
with liberty and justice for but only a few,
as in this game equality is feigned,
and only those with the riches and fame are left unscathed.
But I gotta be brave,
man, it’s hard to prevail while in the shadows of pain.
It’s hard when the gutters of life are paved with this much rain.
I regret so much, this war over my sanity reigns,
and the only weapons I own are in this voice I claim,
my intellect and this jargon of metaphoric phrase.
As I record another page of mistakes from this cage of apathy,
my past continues to rage and blast past me,
these images that seem so hard to erase.
So often painfully embraced by that memory of her that I continue to chase,
soul mates separated by fate as so often is the case.
My ride or die chick until the skies turned grey,
by my side on high ’til I was sentenced to my last breath in this place.
This life is tough with all that we sometimes face,
and it’s rough when we witness our hope extinguished with all that’s at stake.
History repeats itself until our future’s replaced,
until the day God breaks free the chains of our past mistakes.
How often we race toward ungodly and selfish things,
and still yet the Lord above shows nothing but love.
How great is He to whom all praises we sing!
How can I look in the mirror and not see pain?
How can I look to my past…
How can I look to my past and keep these thoughts contained?
And so I take aim with this prose I’m composing,
like a flow being released through my veins to amaze,
just like that Eminem track that when I write replays.
I swear the storm fades with this pen and the ink that it lays,
as this chaotic haze that surrounds me has got me in a daze.
Yet my head I keep raised as I drink from this failure’s cup,
and man what a waste that from behind these gates I’ve watched my son grow up
So many people around me and yet so few I can trust,
stuck and just staring at the hour glass as the sand turns quickly to dust.
This system so corrupt,
time’s moving on without me, and just poppin’ the clutch.
Too often the weight of this pressure is way too much,
and I only stand ’cause I must in the face of this onslaught rush.
But I can’t be crushed or slain by this curse that follows me true,
as here I still am even after all the hell I’ve been through,
after being forgotten by so many of the ones I thought I once knew.
So much hate been birthed and my demise demanded,
now look into these eyes and see that the hues of pain are blue,
these spoken words I utter a pittance,
a soldier’s anthem,
the story written and told across my body tattooed…
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