Reading & Conversation Please Zoom with us in celebration ofThe Beat Within’s 25th Anniversary! Sunday, November 21 at 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm Through storytelling and conversation former Beat Within writers share the inspiring power and strength they have found through writing. Please RSVP to the Zoom link for the event here
Continue ReadingMonth: October 2021
Volume 26.41/42
Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingEd Note 26.41/42
We would like to welcome you readers back to another double dose edition, 26.41/42, of the one and only The Beat Within. This is the only magazine keeping it real for you readers one thousand percent for 25 years! This week we pass the mic or should we say keyboard to our dearest colleague, OT. Most of you know OT by now, if it’s through this editorial note, or for the few of you who have met him over Zoom in our workshops. Regardless, he is great person with plenty of heart and we think his following message will truly
Continue ReadingA New Perspective
by TY, San Diego, CA Everything we are doing is going to have a monumental effect down the road, so you have to move smarter. Start thinking ahead instead of in the moment. This life is chess, not checkers. It’s a waiting game so you have to act accordingly. Just remember that it’s the people who think before they move that make it farther. When you’re sitting in your cell, or when you’re all alone, do some deep thinking about everything you’ve done in life up until now. Then, decide if you’re comfortable with where you’re at in life. If
Continue ReadingDetermined
by Stitch, San Mateo I had court a couple of days ago on Tuesday. They still want my case to be transferred to adult court but my lawyer says there is a good chance that won’t happen, though I still have to wait another couple of months to see what will happen. I am determined to get my freedom back, I know it will take some time. I can do time, though I just have to be patient and stay busy. I really won’t take my freedom for granted ever again. I’ve been down damn near six months and to
Continue ReadingMy Birthday Week
by Mando, San Mateo It’s been a nice week because I got more letters from my family and they sent me some birthday cards. I was reading them and wanted to cry, but I didn’t. My mom told me my PO is goin’ to retire in a week so she goin’ to do my report on this court date and be done after that. I don’t want a new PO, I been with this PO since I was a little kid and I feel like this new PO is just goinn’ to think I’m a bad kid based on my
Continue ReadingCrying To Relieve The Pain
by DJ, Sacramento The last time I cried was two nights ago. I cried because I think of my loved ones a lot and my dad a lot. It would be if my dad was still here, I wonder where I would be. It makes me think would things be different. Would I have had to learn lessons by going through it to see how the outcome is? Would I still feel alone even though I have a lot of people in my corner? People that’s here for me. I also cry because I feel I failed as a son
Continue ReadingDream House
by Jorge, San Francisco The way my dream house would be described is as a big house in the middle of nowhere where I could only be with my family and my current girlfriend. My house would have ten bedrooms. One bedroom would be for me and my girl, another for my Mom, one for my sister and her baby daddy and son. The fourth would be for my Dad. The fifth would be for my baby sister, who would have the best room beside my mom’s. The other five rooms would be for my guests. Each room would have
Continue ReadingEmotionally Challenged
by Jesse Ayers, San Quentin State Prison, CA Rehabilitation of emotionally challenged human beings, takes people down a long, lonely road. Excavating the bones that carried the carcasses that created the fossil fuel that burned the rage inside of us, is no easy task. Can you imagine digging up a T-Rex? Staring into the skull of a terrifying T-Rex that once stalked you, hunted you down and gave you the scars that you now carry is the only way to describe the emotional pain, scars unseen carved by past trauma. “Digging up bones,” as Randy Travis once wrote, “Examine things
Continue ReadingBlack Tears
by Montreal Blakely, San Quentin State Prison, CA This is a story by a Black father who loses his son. Where a man should always be buried by his son, instead here I am burying my son. Lil’ Treal died December 15th, 2012. He was murdered by another Black Kid. My son was a seventeen year old football star. He was a senior in high school with a 3.8 average. He had promised his mom and I that he was going to get it up to a 4.0 before he graduated. He wasn’t a perfect son, but he was a
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