Transcript
Blood in my Eyes By: Ricky Vincent Pendleton II I see dead people, not physically but one of a mental death. In this prison people are very gloomy. They accept being incarcerated and warehoused by people. No fight to grasp their sanity instead they submit to the way of this prison. Their ways and actions do reveal this to me. That is way most sell their soul because of self-hate that they are affected with. Faith is far away from them as the stars even farther. I see how they look forward to the three meals a day for survival. They speak about the next meal in conversations each time. I see a lot of misery in this prison. The negativity is so thick you can feel it, the pressure where if you don't counter it you will fall victim to it. An inmate can bump you and then you immediately snap by attacking him. Then you go to lock up for a prison rule violation for assault or fighting (if the other inmate had fought back). It is just that quick how you can be sucked in like the black hole of negativity here in this prison. The weight of it and then you wanting your freedom back it is a heavy burden to carry each time. I see inmate use their sentence as an excuse to act negatively toward other inmates. They can't handle it within so they express their misery by hurting others. They would steal, lie, extort and even sexually abuse any feeble inmate when they get that chance. Most inmates cut off the outside world just to function inside this new world of theirs. I had seen and heard a lot of stories of some inmates with their troubles. It is a very ugly thing to see or hear about. Homosexuality does go on in here and it is growing rapidly for those who indulge in that type of lifestyle. There were inmates who I thought were good-natured guys until hearing that they were involved in a homosexual relationship with another male inmate. This one inmate who seemed to be cool at the time had been involved in a sixty-nine position with another inmate then got caught by the night shift correctional officer who happens to be a female officer. The administration condones this type of behavior because they don't tolerate inmates being involved with female staff members who makes up the majority of the work force here in this prison. Since I arrived at this prison in 2007 there had been more than twenty female staff members fired for being involved with an inmate. Male staff members also had been fired too but nothing that relates to any sexual, just bringing things in such as cigarettes, drugs etcetera. I do see the stress in most of these inmates' faces. Sometimes I try to do things to make them laugh to cheer them up. I don't want to be in this place, so I try to occupy my time with exercises, fighting my case. I have to get my soul right by the atonement process. I see bunch of atheist hiding in the religious community as a safe haven because of their crime. I also see how people in here can try to bring their outside living habits into this place. This for the most part does bring them conflicts and clashes with other inmates. Like there is this inmate who would put a chair in the middle of the prison cell floor preventing me from going up to my top bunk. He occupies the bottom bunk and I am having a hard time jumping down from the top bunk because the chair is in the way. So I had to bring this to his attention. This could have easily escalated into a fight. I have a strong mind. I don't let these petty thinking inmates get to me. Even though I had lost my cool and punched another inmate before and now it is a learning experience. Most of the time being in here, you have to think for some of these ignorant inmates before you do something which could get you into trouble from something they caused. I see inmates who don't want to be bothered with anything such as religion, health, exercise etcetera. Things in which you have to develop confidence at doing, instead I see a lethargic approach in them. Most of these iimiates are lazy, greedy, self-fish and then hateful bullies. Then at the same time they think that they're tough, cool, smart etcetera. Most of these inmates don't even respect themselves, not even enough to want to care about their health, moral values. All they care for is to eat, sleep, and what they can get from others. Most of the inmates have a poor diet and they eat anything. Most of them are out of shape with big ass bellies. Lifting weights walking around like they're the toughest in the world but can't even bench press only the weight bar a thousand times. Oh, but you can lift four hundred pounds a couple of repetition. Well, I just write what I see here. I am not claiming that I am better than anyone. I see a lot of people who are getting sick with cancer. Recently, a few inmates had died. I wonder why most of these inmates don't even care that this medical department doesn't care all that well to any of us in here. A nurse who thought that an inmate was faking an ailment so they had given him little to no care. The inmate had died of a heart attack. The medical department has this protocol that an inmate maybe faking his ailments just to get prescribed pills that can sedate them. Maybe one out of ten that is the case but, not all. It takes one inmate to mess it up for the rest of us. I can't blame everything on that inmate, and it is crazy how the medical department acts the way they act too. Most of these irmiates are not intrigued by hope and faith. They can say it but their actions doesn't show it. Most of them have bad teeth, with brown decaying teeth which look nasty. They walking around all damn day not brushing their teeth, drinking coffee and eating all day. I don't think that some of them don't ever brush their teeth. They aren't even motivated by those inmates who get a break in their case to fight on. That is the reason why we catch colds because of these germy ass inmates who don't want to groom himself. The administration had to quarantine us because there was a so-called outbreak of the flu where people were getting sick. So they locked us in our cells for six days, and within those days we had to clean our cell with bleach. I hate this life being incarcerate, warehoused so that other people can have a life. People are making a living off of my misery. I am dissatisfied with this life. Then they have the audacity to think that they're better than us. This is why I strive to better myself in this situation. I workout to keep in shape and I eat healthily as much as I can in this place. I am fighting the mental cleansing too. But it is a battle to overcome the things I bear witness everyday. The horror of this place and how people that are faithless with no morals do the things they do. They have no care for themselves and others. A hog eats hog world in this place. It is ironic, when the administration says that the inmates are living high on a hog when they deny us something to have. The blood in my eyes, I cry every time for strength and power to prevail over this madness. The blood means life that is in my eyes because my life is important to me even if no one else cares for it, I do and that's what count. I strive toward freedom by working on my case because I see a lot of default in my case which is wrong. Therefore, I will strive to address them to the courts. So I can be released from being a thirteenth amendment slave according to the U.S. Constitution. By: Ricky Vincent Pendleton II
