by Heather Daoust, California Institution for Women in Corona, CA
I noticed I always tread lightly when I write for The Beat Without. Maybe too lightly. I pop in and out with short spurts then long silence. I always digest my readers and audience.
I think what screws me up is I’m near thirty and doing life in prison. I think of juvie as kids. Kids, to me, are innocent. I always wished to have a child and when I lost my unborn child it put a holy glow on the idea of any and every child.
So, in a way I repeat my background cultural mistake of holding back or censoring my words. I am an author. My Amazon book from January was rate 4.5/5 stars on an international level. My second book will release any day now and I’m signed in double contracts for more than five books. That was my first of five written. The second one not even thought of yet but they trust my fact. I also did journalism with producers/directors in major TV networks, mainstream, they call it. I email famous reporters and we chat for fun.
One of my web pages barely released and is viewed 1.5 thousand times in four months with no ads to help it. I even wrote sermons in a national newsletter for highly respected religious Orthodox leaders and my art has been in galleries and shows. I’ve won awards, wrote for political and national archives knowing it was my worst work I once sent in a bundle and now is released as if made of gold on a free portfolio it won. My fan base is simply nuts.
So you can see, I can write. I write much better than I speak, even. No really; I write like a genius but I didn’t learn to talk socially until ten years old. That’s because I’m autistic. They used to say “Asperger’s Syndrome,” but now it’s “high functioning.” They once told me I was a retard, weird, a loner, crazy. Now they politely mention, “on the spectrum.”
I feel plain stupid when I write for you kids though. I think because in my mind I know that you already know too much and I want to shelter you, so I omit. But, see that’s the problem. Omission will only stunt you. Keeping a growing mind in the dark makes it dream of light.
I once heard in Europe some countries had no age laws on alcohol. They also had the lowest rates of alcoholics and the least alcohol related crimes as well as deaths in the world. Back then, a vodka was like a soda at a store, give money, get drink. You know what? Vodka taste nasty and kids love the taste of soda. No mystery, no desire. We only want what we shouldn’t have.
So much in life is hidden from youth so youth go and find. Hide and go seek, a game simple enough for toddlers. You hide sex from young girls so they get curious and teen pregnancy occurs. You hide drugs from young boys so they experiment until a period of time passes and they get locked up as young man.
We pretend racism doesn’t exist so we act out with prejudice until proven ignorant, which at times may not happen soon enough and lives are lost. Society has gangs in movies but in reality our abused youth look for them as a result and mimic movies into deathbeds.
I was fourteen when I got locked up for murder. Violence was zero tolerance in my school and anger looked at as an unacceptable emotion. Crying was to be held in and abuse hidden. I grew up in a gated community with a rich adoptive family but was raped and molested for years and eventually my unborn son was killed.
I omitted my feelings then exploded. I exploded so terribly I now have to write letters like the following for Board:
I was a kid who had the right to feel hidden from me by greedy father figures and a religious persecutor. I committed my emotions after rapes and pregnancy. I even hid my emotion so deep as to cover up my orientation, gender identity and eventually all of myself.
But I had to find myself. I exploded long before I could. I took a life in the process. So I have to tell you now: Never hide yourself.