Echoes of doors banging rang out through F block, I turned around one final time to faces in windows raised fists everywhere.
Voices sprung from oblivion in a diverse chorus of empowerment as I walked out of one door and into another.
“Don’t look back!”
“Chin Up, Chest Out!”
“Keep taking those crazy photos!”
I turned down the Sallyport hallway discreetly brushing tears as I went, dumping my mattress and sheets into a messy pile. They handed me a plastic bag, inside a pair of white t-shirt, black pants that now hung off me and a pair vans. Those fucking vans man. Those fucking vans and all the places they had gone. Where was I going now? Everybody seemed to have different guesses but to me it was always clear. I had spent too many nights projecting dreams onto cell walls, there was no mistaking the journey in my mind; I was going to climb. There was no destination, the only goal was to keep climbing spiritually, mentally and physically; if I turned back now I was lost.
Those first warm spring nights fighting nightmares on the spare bedroom floor of my dads small apartment turned into summer nights still searching for answers somewhere in the dark behind the lens of a camera. The stakes were high, but what do you stake against truth? What do you stake against your freedom to exist as you were meant to and think freely? When you’re living your truth you’re at your richest. Beyond any fear of death or a cell lied a greater fear of living a fear based life and betraying my truth. That was death to me.
Here I stand a year later worn but not wounded, suffering but not silent, bruised but not broken, the flames that burned the bridges birthed the phoenix. Today is just one day of many taking back ownership of my struggle, the same art I was bound for will free countless others in the same place I struggled for my own freedom. Here’s to the ones that break through but never change for it, to the unreasonable thinkers and dreamers and those that understand the value of living their truth. The destination is still unknown but the climb is ever present, hand over hand every dream is in sight and the stars shine closer than ever. To the moon and never back.
