Letter to Mike, from the Detention Center, for the last time

I haven't been here since 2004.

Wow & now I remember how it used to be so easy to talk to you from in here. I miss you so much--the most out of all the ones I said good bye to--your freckles and white play dough skin. The time you insisted on walking in Kittyhawk, along the strip, in the 80 degree sun, til Mandy & I found you drenched--your jeans even wet w sweat, on a concrete slab outside 7-11. There is no room, no time in here to dream, I didn't know enough back then, 25, 26, to bring hope in.

I barely had my own.

I guess I did tho. One of my boys got his diploma when he got out--another learned all about Ghandi, X & King. Other success? They learned metaphors, wrote stories for me of their lives. One guy we started on his multiplication tables I was so gentle when I talked to him and he softened and was even shy--tho I bet they teased him about fucking me when they got back to their cells. I was proud of them, sent post cards when I went on the road. There's a health care debate in the US right now--that there can even be debate about basic human rights : health care--tells you, proves, just what we're all still about. If health care isn't available bc it's not affordable rights aren't equal, that is just a common sense equivalent, a fact. So it goes. A white grl private school kid gets locked-up for drugs what happens? Another addict punished for crime bc of her disease. Yes. She gets out tho, makes good. She dreams well & she blvs she can chnge the wrld. Black man almst done hghschl, poor fifty-seven yr old white woman frst chld by 9th grade. They get out, what's her path to make good? What's his? What will they blv?

Yesterday I enrolled new mom's from the early childhood program in to english class. One from Guatamala, one from Mexico. When it was done I drove to my office & inside one of the guys from Workforce grabbed me and said you have a student she just walked in. She was pregnant. Another mom from another early childhood program this one meant to help with her GED. I been trying to track you down you're hard to get a hold of she said, then out of the blue at lunch today It said to go so I said to my mom, I gotta go now I gotta go see the lady from the college now.

& Why? Why does It talk to some of us but others never know? Why do only some of us listen, or believe?

After you died I dscvrd diPrima. Even called her one day on my own. It didn't take long then for my words. After you left & the jail & the family center broke me & then I went to Oregon to cry. How did I get here? How?

One thing I never talk about is how I called you the day you shot yourslf. You never called me back. You were looking at pictures of us when they found the blood chunks of your head.

After all that I went on the road again it took me back to Chestertown, it was April 05 we were fighting in our little seafront apt Lincoln Beach when I knew he needed to go home.

Did he? Or was it I? I talked to Patty & Brenda it'd been a long time since we talked heart to heart & I alwys scrtly felt bad when it came to them like maybe they thought I'd done smthng wrong when I left Brandon. But they hugged me & loved me & it was just like when I was young--like before--when my heart broke ovr our students again & again & they just kept teaching me the ropes & saying let god fill your heart when you've got nothing left. They were like moms to me when it came to Adult Ed back then. But when there's nothing left in there what do you follow how do you know in what direction to go?

When I turned 30, that was the spring I learned or started to be willing to learn to be true. I was studying Gandhi then, again--Gandhi who started his adult life in London dancing fox trots & eating 4 star meals dressed in the finest hand-tailored suits. That nagging that ache that heart that said I was on the wrong path doing all the wrong thing. I told Patty then--whtvr it is I will go inside & I will listen & I will end up going where I need to be. That was when I turned 30. First thing that happened is Brandon said he would never move. I was back there Truslow Road under the pines trees it was about to be spring. & second thing--the poetry came back to me--it was Josh this time--I hadn't had words since you, Mike, since I stopped finally talking to you. & this time it was to Josh & when I stopped fighting the words just came & came, they just flew...

It's all different now--I've done my best to listen to & follow me & it has been hard & led me here all these yrs later. I used to think or be convinced but now I know--there is nothing or no one to blame. It takes a whole life to make good. It takes a long, long while.

I miss you but I am glad you went on & never ended up in here. Detention centers are one thing--prison totally something else. So much worse. Mayvbe it is better to un*see. To pretend you cant, or choose to not. I dont know? It is sad, so sad here. Basic human rights. It'll be different some day? Basic rights to what? Human rights. Food. Clothes. Shelter. Health.

Pursuit of happiness?

Been a long time coming. Can one be an activist & blv in both? The opportunity & the "right" to choose? Life daunts you, no? And love breaks your dreams. Are words contraband? Are visions, song, illegal as dreams? I dont care Mike. Even after all that's been done. All the places I've gone all that I've seen. Pursuit of happiness=vision of what could be. I used to tell my students in here QUESTION EVERYTHING. Dig a little deeper--dont just believe. But sometimes you've got to--in order to know what to choose. To know you have the right. I still will, I still will believe, I will choose hope.