I and, perhaps, most of those I’ve come into knowing, throughout my incarceration, have spent time suspended in that virtual reality the less informed refer to as [the] restorative housing unit. 

 

Going to “seg”, “isolation”, “the hole”, became so normal an occurrence, the older prisoners thought it important to teach me to “pack light” - that is reduce the amount of personal belongings down to what was absolutely necessary. 

 

One of the more highlighted incidents of my imprisonment happened while I was in the “hole” - R.H.U. I was around 18 years old of age. The manufactured cold (characteristic to such places) exacerbated by the lack of sufficient covering disallowed my mind to consider the possibility of sleeping my way out of this nightmare: I was too cold to even conjure the mental strength to convince myself I would make it through. 

 

An officer doing a walk-through - welfare check - was to be the target for the hostile expression of my displeasure. Incited by the sight of the officer my normal disposition found itself hijacked by a rage only made in moments where the choice is fight or flight. 

 

Overtaken by the instance to fight for my life I drifted outside the plane of reality. I warred with whatever presented themselves, whether real or imagined; no actual human beings ever entered the cell while I experienced this deterioration. I exhausted myself. Forcefully defending my life against the torrent of this reality, I was blindsided by insanity. 

 

I went to a place (in my mind), as is often spoken of, where some people fail to return from. I believe that isolation of this manner inspires the inclination to detach, remove one’s self, from reality. One is driven into the necessitous compulsion to rely heavily on the imaginative powers of the mind. This alone is not harmful but when grouped with various other psychological ailments the response can be debilitating, and often it is. The effects of that mental break, that instant in which I lost all sense of reality, I still perceive to this day. 

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No, (I am not sure). I do remember a good friend of mine hung himself but the officer came in before he has successfully taken his own life. The “hole” caused him a great deal of mental anguish as he has never been isolated before. 

 

After seeing him, immediately after the suicide attempt, I remember writing this poem. 

 

Hopeless by Joshua Hairston

Have you ever witnessed a ghost - 

Look into the eyes of a man living without hope - 

A body without spirit, a corpse that floats.