I’ve been here for about ten days now. It was never part of my plan… to get thrown in jail, I mean. It was never part of the plan! My whole life I believed that I was destined for greater things! My mother always told me I was a star… That I was going to make her really proud… That I was going to be her beacon of hope!

She had a tough life, you know. Her father shot her mother when she was only eight years old. Eight! She ran away from home when she was fifteen. She lived on the streets for five years. Then she met my father and fell pregnant with me. I was her hope. I was her dream…

I was always a good kid growing up. I never did anything wrong. I always did as I was told. I obeyed rules like they were meant to be obeyed! I got bullied at school for being too much of an obedient child. Tall poppy syndrome. They punched me. They kicked me. They swore me. But I always got up and felt sympathy for them… I never did anything about it. I guess it made me stronger…

Damn, man! I didn’t even do it! I DIDN’T DO IT! It wasn’t me! They think I killed my mother! THEY THINK I’M THE ONE WHO SHOT HER! It wasn’t me… I’ve told them that! I’ve been here for ten days and they haven’t listened to my side of the story!

I’m riding on the wings of hope… I’m hoping they’ll listen to me… and believe me. I’m just hoping. That’s all I can do in this cell… hope… But at night, when there are no lights on, only the feint moon shining softly through my small window… that’s when it’s worst… that’s when you hear grown men weep to themselves. That’s when you hear the walls whispering their tales… Their taunts…

This place is notorious, you know… No one ever makes it out of here… Hope has no place here. Neither does justice. Only suffering and death.