Letter:
Transcript:
Troy Hendrix #06A2056
Five Points Corr. Facility
State Route 96, P.O. Box 119
Romulus, New York 14541
Voices from Solitary
P.O. Box 11374
Washington, DC 20008
December 10, 2018
Greetings and Blessings! It has been several years since I have written to you, and unfortunately my struggle continues. I have been in solitary 13 years (and counting), and unsure when the end will come. Several years ago I wrote a piece entitled “Your imagination, but my reality”, and you published it on your site. I lost the motivation to write for quite some time, but I recently felt inspired to share my thoughts in a new piece, “Your imagination, but still my reality (The Saga continues/ part 2)”. Enclosed is the piece. Feel free to post on your site. I would love to know it.
“Your imagination, but still my reality” (The saga continues/ Part 2)
Imagine living in a place where the sky is cloudless and clear and the sun cast off radiant rays of sunlight, never leaving room for darkness. A place where the air is fresh, and not polluted with the toxic fumes of bitterness, misery, hate, and depression. A place free from unbearable loneliness, and inhumane isolation. A place designed to keep minds intact, and not shatter them. A place designed to warm your heart, and not freeze it. Unfortunately, this place that I speak of is merely my imagination, because the extreme isolation that I am currently subjected to is my present reality.
Imagine having to imagine a normal environment to live in. I am left to dream and imagine this, just so I can escape this abnormal environment, that is my present reality. It’s only a temporary escape, but a escape nevertheless. For the past 13 years (and counting), I have been buried deep within the rotten bowels of solitary confinement, and the harshness, comfortless, and coldness of this confinement, has chilled my bones, and turned my warm heart cold. The atrocious, grim, and inhumane conditions of this isolation, has ripped my soul to shredded pieces. The subjection to this bleak, brutish, and dour environment for so many years, has left me desensitized, disconnected, and detached. The years spent in this lonely, unpitying, and bitter habitation, has stolen away my joy, hope, trust, and pieces of my mind, hear, and soul.
Solitary confinement brings with it clouds of depression, loneliness, bitterness, hopelessness, (and much more), and its not easy to see pass these clouds, because the sun rarely shines. With your imagination, you will most definitely be able to visualize the bleak, gloomy, and inhumane conditions of solitary confinement, but your “experience” will only be limited to a visualization. The 13 plus years that I have spent buried deep within the confines of solitary confinement is only your imagination, but it is still my reality.
By: Troy Hendrix
Dated: December 10, 2018
This is part 2 of my previous post entitled “Your imagination, but my reality”
Codes:
Keeping track of time: how long they’ve been in solitary; writing as coping; positive emotions: inspiration; imagination as coping; emotional geographies: realities of experiences in solitary; social conditions: “abnormal,” “inhumane,” brutality; metaphors/references: to being buried, body, outdoors/sky; psychological/emotional impact: desensitization, detachment, hopelessness; difference in positions between prisoner and person outside
