When I left Clinton, I left due to my own stupidity, but in no way did my disciplinary ticket reach the threshold for solitary confinement. The fact of the matter is that they wanted me gone, and I wanted to be gone, so when they overstepped and gave me 90 days of solitary anyway, I didn’t even trip. Of course, solitary isn’t really solitary, because the state inexplicably mandates double-bunking (sharing a cell with another incarcerated person) in the residential rehabilitation units (RRUs), the euphemism for the box.

When I got to Upstate box, I was arriving with a reputation for “being an asshole” (as the staff like to say), an assault on staff charge, and a piece off the printing press so hot it was turning red necks purple (see last week’s letter about an op-ed in the New York Post criticizing me). I was hot hot, when in all reality, I was just looking for peace. A normal bid. A way to continue to grow. A way to fully step out of that quick-tempered street mentality that I needed to correct in order to be a good leader.

When I got to Upstate box, I was arriving with a reputation for “being an asshole” (as the staff like to say), an assault on staff charge, and a piece off the printing press so hot it was turning red necks purple (see last week’s letter about an op-ed in the New York Post criticizing me). I was hot hot, when in all reality, I was just looking for peace. A normal bid. A way to continue to grow. A way to fully step out of that quick-tempered street mentality that I needed to correct in order to be a good leader.

When I got to Upstate box, I was arriving with a reputation for “being an asshole” (as the staff like to say), an assault on staff charge, and a piece off the printing press so hot it was turning red necks purple (see last week’s letter about an op-ed in the New York Post criticizing me). I was hot hot, when in all reality, I was just looking for peace. A normal bid. A way to continue to grow. A way to fully step out of that quick-tempered street mentality that I needed to correct in order to be a good leader.

When we got the Less is More Act passed in 2021, legislation that overhauled the worst parole system in the nation, I was quickly made the target of Correction Officers (COs) at Elmira Correctional Facility, where I was incarcerated at the time, and even a Republican senator in a news article about the new law.I was consistently targeted for everything petty and simple, like suddenly not being called to visits in a timely manner and denied showers, to more serious incidents like being assaulted by a CO while recovering from surgery in the prison’s medical facility.

I’ve been in jail almost 16 years now. Been through the ups, still find myself navigating the downs, and even with about a year and half until my release, I still sometimes have no idea whether I’m coming or going. The days are still long, and prison has been nothing short of the scariest, most harrowing and life-changing ride that I believe a person could ever step foot in, especially when you’ve been here this long. I don’t believe that doing 16 years in here could ever not play tricks on you psychologically, and so I constantly find myself up to my neck in daily paradoxes, trying to navigate who I was with who I am becoming.