San Quentin, the end of the line in California Justice System. Bastille by the bay, as it was known by us old con’s. Stone upon stone was laid by the sweat of the convict’s over one hundred and forty years ago, it stands today as it did then, a desolate, dreary, stagnate, maze of misery to torture those misguided souls who blundered into it’s desolation.
The graveyard of broken lives and rusting dreams, the poor man’s Castle, build at the end of the Worlds to rectify society’s failures. As I stand looking out through the steel bars, I again feel the loneliness, bitterness and frustration are the constant companions of us inside these walls. Living within this still and concrete Cathedral of Evil, while a thousand suspicious eyes pry into whatever privacy I may have found, perform before an audience of emotional sick cripples, each guided by their own abstract illusion on this shuffling march into madness.
Just another nameless statistic, paying his pound of flesh. A rejected misfit, cast off from societies assembly line of sanctimonious hypocrites, a loser in life, liberty and the innate freedom so proverbial to the decent people. How can I reclaim the kindness and gentleness that once shaped my life?. In this world-the hounds of hell snip at my hell, there is no gentleness, and kindness will be taken as weakness by those hostile and cruel eyes, empty of reason or conscience. Jealousy and envy walk around with smiles on their faces, you’ve heard of the double cross?, In San Quentin you have to watch out for the triple cross. Hate multiplies like some cancerous bacteria, consuming those positive motivations and scarring the core of your soul.
Death has become the way of life, an added prestige to those who have nothing left to lose. Murder; cold and ugly, even grotesque, the savage eruption of exaggerated hate and insensitivity. Swift and bloody, the Monstrosity of Depravity tha lays dormant in man, has awakened and is the ultimate indignity to a foe, I have walked by a nice guys cell and seen the gushes of blood from slashed wrist and throats, slashed because they could no longer handle running the gauntlet of treachery or scheming ambitions of half crazed madmen. Seeing these horrors every day, does something to humanity of man; that is really you is driven deeper inside, seeking comfort and refuge amidst the seclusion and foggy haze of unconcern. Understand that in the face of a constant assault upon your personality, you are forced to turn off your emotional faucet, dry up those r\feelings of pity and turn a blind eye to the blood on the tier, that just came from of many calloused layers of ridged resistance, which serves as a protection for those emotions necessary for sanity. You ridged resistance, which serves as protection for those emotions necessary for sanity. You survive by donning a MASK and playing the part of a stiff legged convict, a man of cold indifference and ready to snap and snarl at any sign of disrespect. Cold-who others think he is because your world demands it…Ultimately, men eventually become-who others think he is-the paranoid predator that has learned to smile, but is full of Treachery and has a desire for murder,.
here in the shadowy darkness of night, in my cell I can lower my guard and strip away the false mask which cancels my conscience and rationalize my actions, as I have done every night. “But” its not as other nights in my cell, the MASK IS ON TO TIGHT! I can not remove it. I keep trying, but can not, I still feel the tear that rolled down my face that night as I looked in the mirror trying to recognized myself, but the man that was staring back at me just smiled!, hating the world and swearing vengeance upon those that have turned me into a NEFARIOUS THING! I hunger for sleep, that blissful highway of escape, where my dreams have color, and wander towards an animated reality of wonderful future…Bit, I awoke in a cold sweat, because I dreamed of MURDER!!!
Written By:
Frank (PONCHO) Baca
