Where I Am
by Akilya H.

I’m in a situation
all alone
trying to find my way home

Stuck between
the midst of
Judge Studdley’s palm
I am a struggling Black sister
in a terrible, deserted place

With a gun on my waist
stuck all alone
In my project home!

I am trapped in the Greazy
until times get easy

Where I am
is somewhere
I hope not to be
tomorrow

(Source: Escape Route Free Write Jail Arts Anthology Vol.5)

Marissa (not her real name) would like you to know that she’s “not just some piece of garbage.” I am meeting with her for the fourth time in as many weeks. I am supposed to be on “vacation.” Her mother reached out to me through a friend. She’s just been released from youth prison. She spent 9 months locked up.

We are talking again about what her plans will be now that she is out on parole. She is cursing her “after-care” worker. She’s a “bitch who doesn’t understand anything.” I don’t know the woman but I am pretty sure that she isn’t a bitch and that she does in fact understand something. I wonder for the 10th time if she thinks I too am a bitch who doesn’t understand anything. But I digress…

I ask her about her “plan.” All of the youth who are released and on parole have a service “plan.” They are sometimes 100 pages long and they mandate all kinds of things: 1) you must go back to school; 2) you must stay away from your old friends; 3) you must continue drug treatment; you must, you must… None of the youth who I know or work with take the “plan” the least bit seriously. They are certain that it’s a set up and they are right. How can a young person who didn’t attend school (sometimes for years) before they got locked up, all of sudden have perfect attendance? It’s a set-up and the young people know it.

Marissa would like you to know that she’s “not just some fuck up.” I sit across from her and I know that I have very little to offer. I can’t get her a job. She’s 18 now, she has no high school diploma, she has a terrible attitude. I don’t mind the terrible attitude, I would be in a perpetually bad mood too if I were in her shoes. So I try to wear an impassive expression to let her know that she can’t push me around but also that I am actively listening to what she has to say.

“Why do I even have to be here talking to you?” she asks.

“I don’t know, why do you?” I respond.

I tell her that she doesn’t have to be here. That I have things to do and she is free to leave so that I can get back to those matters. She stares back at me and breaks out in a widening smile. Then says: “You’re a real asshole aren’t you?” and follows it up with “I mean that in a good way.” I keep the impassive expression on my face, look down at my nails and calmly I respond: “Thank you for noticing.” Now she is laughing outright and outloud. We’ve avoided a confrontation for today. She tells me that she is only staying for the “free food.”

Marissa would like you to know that “she’s gonna do what she needs to do.” I have little to offer her but my presence and my unwillingness to be frightened off by her surliness that is meant to test my loyalty and my commitment. What Marissa needs desperately is a job and a way to support herself and her family. I don’t have a way to assure that for her. So I sit in a Panera Bread restaurant on a Tuesday afternoon eating a salad while she eats a sandwich, saying little of consequence and just trying to be present.

I’ve written about the significant increase in the number of black girls in prison in the past. Marissa is one of thousands in the U.S. I think that this is a terribly poor reflection on this country. It seems though that almost no one cares about the plight of these young women. We should all be deeply ashamed…