Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingMonth: November 2018
Ed Note 23.49/50
Greetings friends! We welcome you wonderful readers and supporters to yet another fabulous double issue (23.49/50) of writing and art from the inside and beyond! We are certainly thrilled that you have this one-of-a-kind publication in your hands. As is the case with each issue, there is plenty of solid standout writings from our many contributors – from our young and old who deliver their truths from inside the numerous detention facilities we visit, to those who send their submissions to us via snail mail, as well as those in the free world who courageously share their truths each week!
This week we welcome to our editorial section the reflections of two of our high school interns from the Urban School of San Francisco, Melia and Yudi.
These past few months we’ve had the pleasure of working with fifteen Urban students as they transcribed writing for our Beat Without pages, immersing themselves into the thoughts of our prolific writers.
In Melia’s, “A World Without Borders,” she explores the breakdown of the single-story narrative, and in her words, how “those living inside do not have one identity that is defined by suffering.”
Continue ReadingWhile I’m Here
I murdered him. I stabbed him fifty-one times in his sleep, and now his name likely evokes in people close to him funny, warm and wonderful memories of a man they still love. And then it evokes pain because they remember, they realize suddenly after a happy thought and a smile that he was brutally taken from them for no real reason. Their guts wrench hard. They are saddened. They are angered. They remember that they are lonely and hurting without the treasured piece of their lives that I so callously took from them – their son, their brother, their friend, Carlos. “It wasn’t his time!” they yell furiously all at God and at me and at nobody… But only nobody hears them.
Obviously, I cannot return that precious heart-piece to them. I cannot bring Carlos back – no matter that I wish more desperately every day that I could. In fact, there is nothing I can ever do to make up for this horrible wrong I committed, I know, or for all the harm I’ve caused. Not with my own blood. Not with a lifetime in prison. For there is no justice for murder. So there is definitely no way for me to justify my actions. Though I have spent many years behind these walls trying do that exactly.
Continue ReadingIf These Streets Could Speak
I’d ask why they couldn’t save me
And why they’ve been taking my family on the daily
Why they take my best friends, Hailey and Bailey
And lately I’ve just been feeling like I’ve been going crazy
But maybe
This is just the way it’s supposed to be
But I no longer fear it
‘Cause I feel the Lord is close to me
He restored my hope
That I’d one day be free
Yeah He helped me cope
With all these lonely nights of incarceration
Missing my family man
My heart is achin’
The only way that I can express myself
is through this art I’m makin’
Volume 23.47/48
Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingEd Note 23.47/48
Greetings from chilly, Portland, Oregon! We have spent the last few days up in beautiful Portland, as we work to get our writing workshops back up and running inside the Donald J. Long Juvenile Hall, given our longtime partner, PSU (Portland State University) Capstone is no longer running the groups. The exciting part, probation wants to continue The Beat Within and helped us to arrange a volunteer orientation, which we held the other day. We had over 11 participate in the orientation, many very familiar with doing workshops during their time at PSU. Today, the best part, we are back
Continue ReadingNothing Lasts Forever
Twenty years ago, as I attended my father’s funeral I was overwhelmed with grief. My way of coping with my feelings was to hold them in. I believed that it was a sign of weakness to cry and to talk about my feelings of loss and grief. I believed it was easier to mask the pain I felt by getting high.
However, those feeling combined with the other hurts and pains I had bottled up over the years, led me to make the horrific, violent decision to hurt others. I believed that no one cared, and no one understood me.
I was hurting, plus I wanted others to feel the pain I was feeling. As a result, I murdered two innocent human beings and was sentenced to thirty-four years-to-life. I thought my feelings of past traumas and loss would never go away.
Continue ReadingOver Again
by Angel A do over would be a really good thing to have because I wish I could take back what I did that got me in here. I hate the fact that I’m locked up because I’ve lost so much time with the ones I care about most. I would only take the do over if I could still be who I am because I hated who I was turning into. My mom didn’t even know who I was. I kept distancing myself from my family. Those are the reasons why I would only take the do over. I realized
Continue ReadingVolume 23.45/46
Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingEd Note 23.45/46
Greetings friends of The Beat Within! Welcome to double issue 23.45/46! This magazine that you have in your hands, like other issues, took a lot of hard work and effort from all of our staff and dedicated writers to complete. We would like to send a big shout-out to everyone: from all the counselors and teachers inside the various Juvenile Halls that we do workshops in, to all our workshop facilitators, editors, graphics lay-out designer, and all the juvenile hall youth, the Ranches, community based organizations, schools, and all our friends and writers from our BWO Section that are locked
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