~ THE AMERICAN ARACHNID ~
By Chris Deraleau
Section 3
I remember writing in my journal as i always have though, this time i felt something very different then ive ever written.. it was a sort of farewell letter if you will, to something that had become like a silent, old friend.. relationships in life have ups and downs. they have twists and turns. good times and bad times. times of growing and times of pain, forcing you to grow when you dont feel ready to. relationships teach us alot about ourselves and we may be unable to take it all in at once, but in the wake of calm after the noise of the events subside, one is able to reflect on what he or she has been through in the past, and rising to the surface, are the things youve learned. in these experiences, our procession, our forward momentum into who we become, ae based on exeriences and relationships. relationships with this world, and relationships with certain situations. the relationship i speak of, is prison. a brutal up and down. a college you cannot ring a bell and retire from. a war... with no days off.. and charlie.. is on both sides of the law, in and out of court rooms, and in prison and on the streets. a few good men yet... a few good women.. that is all thats left, and a dream that still lives deep in the hearts of the true enough to see, the brave enough to love, and the free enough to see, freedom here isnt free.. that promise was re-written in the blood of many americans whove sacrificd their lives for a power-base corrupt enough to undercut for self-gain, and money. justice is an illusion within the judicial system in this country. if you look with the right kind of eyes, you will see. if your looking for truth there, i assure you, you will find truth there. and that truth is, that truth means nothing, money means everything. closures. plea deals. everything except for truth is valued, and if your for truth, and principle and pushing real, honest policy. youll end up like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in one way or another. left with your dreams in a bloody pool in the wake of the assassination of everything you thought you knew. it shouldnt be about how you treat your most prosperous and popular americans, it should be about everyone as a whole. justice, the quality of being fair, and adhering to moral principles. one of the four virtues in life, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. i love myself today because of what i know about this life, what ive learned through experience. i have had to learn in ways so surreal, so primal, so terrifying, so medieval that everything i experience, i am experiencing it as who i truly am. things ive been through are defining. my resiliance not to break, even though i stumble is amazing even to myself now that i can see it for what it is. the strength ive demonstrated when i didn't realize it was strength is beyond words. and when i tell this story, you too will see.. i had almost died. i felt i was living to die, but the pain was just me dying to live i now see. living to die because, i had let the dust of my past, all the way from the Lone-Star states justice machine choke my spirit all these years later with the harsh taste of residue that had attempted to settle on the lungs of my soul, almost causing collapse, exactly like it is designed to from the psychological death sentence handed down to me while my heart was still beating as a senior in high-school. i was dealt a cruel hand indeed. a highschool chapter book turned horror novel, and along side a diploma.. my hands were blood red as i held the monstrosity that is the modern day scarlet letter. the blood was my own. the wound was on my heart, and soul, though in no way could i possibly realize how badly i was injured at the time. Rape. Sexual assault. the accusations couldn't have gotten any worse. girls i had ran the streets with at night, drinkng and breaking liquor bottles on the back roads, toilet papering houses, smoked pot with, girls who had slept with, and been sexual with many of my own very close friends, girls i confided in, girls i trusted, girls i thought i knew, girls i had laughd with, joked with, girls that ran with the pack of us, turned my world upside down. an arrest. then.... a choice i wish on no man.. right out of the oldest trick in the prosecutors play book. there are two options only. and on the shining, gold and silver crested belt buckle of the Bible Belt, within the hot glimmering edges of the Texas perimeter, the state is whispering something very cold and very lethal and real. "there is no justice here. no justice, except for our pocket books. we don believe in justice here, not in redemption or truth, just recycled misery and money, we gaurantee you that. " the routes you have in the american legal system today are very narrow and with little to no food on either end. you will surely starve to death trying to make any real sense of it, for the justice system is nt a seeker of truth i assure you. it is a violent blind, profoundly stu