Remorse

Remorse and Healing are synonymous, one with the other.

 Healing is a very subjective phrase, but it is one I often use when referring to prison and prisoners because for some of us who are remorseful there is always a HEALING/POINT; a point where a person stops, sits down and begins to examine his/her life choices. What I have put on here today is about ONE of those many times when I took a close look at my life. A time when I finally took responsibility for my own thoughts and actions. I point out that I am sharing just one of those times because the truth is that personal accountability or change seldom comes as a bright light that knocks you to the ground, ie. Saul of Tarsus. It usually happens in increments over a long period of time. At least it did for me.

For me it was never about remorse, I was remorseful long before I was locked up, but prison knocked me to my knees, peeled back the false pride and the self/deception, it brought my life into focus and forced me to see beyond my own remorse and to examine the RESULTS of my crimes, my selfish behavior. And when I looked at myself I knew that I had no excuses, it was on me. Yes, drugs played a large part ... no not those kinds of drugs, I never did meth or crack or heroin, or the kind of drugs most often associated with addiction and its companion, failure. My drug of choice was shooting steroids' and I'm here to testify that they altered my personality. I went from being kind to being aggressive and even violent. Now I know that this is a controversial subject because a lot of folks do steroids and it doesn't affect them that way ... but it did me! Under the influence of steroids' I lost my compassion, my empathy, my kind nature ... yeah, I'm one of the kindest spirits you'll ever meet ... when I'm not on steroids. Enough of that. This little piece I post today is not about who I have been in the past but who I am now and how I recaptured my soul ... how I healed. 

As I look back on this little part of my prison diary ... what, no I didn't say DIARY ... diaries are for young girls! I said JOURNAL ... No. I won't argue with you. I never used the "D" word, I said JOURNAL, G-damn it!! 

So many years ago. 30 plus years behind bars. Don't fret, I am well and happy!! :) But it wasn't always so. Here's a little peek into the mind of a broken-hearted sinner.

I wrote this 20 years ago in a single-cell at USP Florence; it is an except from my book,

 "A Poet Dreams". 

"Heavy of heart I returned to my cell where I sat down on the cold floor with my back against the furthest wall. I weighed my options and collected my thoughts, beginning once again to inventory my life, hoping beyond hope that possibly there was some good deed that I had performed which had been overlooked in my prior inventories, something of real value that I had given to the world, without thought of payment. But nothing different presented itself and I was left hoping that I had done something selfless, something so selfless that I didn't even remember doing it. Then in resignation I tried to remember the last time that I'd experienced happiness, not laughter, but happiness, bliss, and somewhere in that search I found rest, I found sleep, and in that sleep, the chatter of my mind fell silent, and, in that darkness I heard a voice, the voice of silence and it said; "You have chosen a hard path to follow, but follow it you must, because at the end of it you will find your salvation." I remember this voice as the voice that had nurtured me as a child, the voice who had consoled me when I was a teen alone on the streets, the voice that had given me strength when I was afraid, the same voice I had not heard for many years. How long has it been since it has spoken to me, how long since I have listened?

"Many lost years I have behind me, many frivolous goals, many years of thirst, many years content with the scraps of petty pleasures; I had traded my soul for bad fruit. Yes, many years now I had been as wretched as any criminal, I had become the divine comedian. I played a game with very high stakes and now find myself bankrupt. In that moment I knew that the game was over, that I could no longer play it, for I has regained the ability to hear the unspoken words, the silent voice of my higher more noble possibilities. I shuddered, shook myself, and then smiled, because something had died within me, and I knew it to be the heave on my own consumption, of my ignorance.

"Somewhere in this contemplation I lost consciousness and have lain down upon the cold floor and when I, at last, regained consciousness I saw the night had arrived. I fell upon my bunk where the pale light of the full moon cast the long shadow of prison bars across my face.

"I looked out the barred window of my cell to watch as my sister made her way across the sky and in the shadow of her peace the noises in my head became silent. Mute and motionless, my eyes fixed upon her radiant beauty and in her spell; I became breathless and in that state an arrow from the east was released and shot through me with perfect accuracy.

"Over the next few days, I asked for and received instructions, hour, days, months and years did I immolate that of my teachers so far away on the banks of the great river. I spent hours in contemplation, hours in meditation and I longed for the personal discipline to forsake my desires, my dreams, my loves, my body and my sins, hoping that by doing so I could, if not physically then mentally, escape my prison's sentence. I stood in the searching sun, I flew past the cool of the moon and I watched with closed eyes as a panorama of stars sailed across the sky; no longer was I the man in the box, a man bound by my chains and walls and ignorance. Yes, in my motionless I came to know the anger in my heart, the unrest in my spirit and the stranger in my soul, for in spite of it all, I remained a prisoner.

"Again, I sat and looked though the bars at my piece of the world. I watched as my sister brought forth the blood of life in woman, and then I watched her dance across the sky, and out of love for her, beneath the beauty of her blushing face, I repented for all the lies I had spoken to the gentle sisters of the earth; forgiveness did I ask, for all the hearts I left unfulfilled. Hour after hour I sat in silence and measured my very breath, and in time my guilt fled and my anger melted away form me and when the first light of day touched the darkness of my cell, I lowered my eyes and on unsteady legs swayed from side to side as I stood to give thanks for another day, for another breath."

FYI: I will add here that my written JOURNAL has been out of print now for several years, but it is back in print, it is called "Where No One Hears Me" but I caution you ... do not buy it! It is a miserable book ... and I have never met even one person who could read it from cover to cover ... in truth it is the hardest punching real prison book you'll ever encounter.

For those interested. I receive no money, not one penny from any of my books. I give it all away. 

Ok brats!! That's all I have today. Peace be with you, Mayor Mark out!

#Healing in prison. perdurabo. Mayor Mark

 

 

Bastrop, TX 9/15/2026