Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingMonth: January 2025
Ed Note 29.49/50
Welcome to the final issue of 2024. We extend the utmost gratitude and thanks for your support and participation in The Beat Within community. We are so proud to continue to provide space to amplify your voices. This editor note shares two new voices from different positions in The Beat Within family. From an older perspective, Michael A. Kroll, commonly known as “Einstein.” at eighty-one, he is the oldest and most veteran Beat Within facilitator, the true Beat Within OG. To the impressions and observations from Tess, one of our high school student interns, who has been helping to transcribe
Continue ReadingChanging for the Better
-LD, Albuquerque I’m thankful for each and every day I’m alive. Even though I’m not in the best place or even in the best situation, I’m still thankful. I’m thankful for all my loved ones, family and friends. I’m thankful for all the blessings God gives me every day and all the opportunities that have come my way and have still yet to come. I’m also thankful for my daughter, even though I’m not the biological father. I still love and treat her like she’s mine. I will forever be thankful for my grandma. Without her, I wouldn’t be who
Continue ReadingLast Day on Base
-Wily, San Mateo When I go back and think about my journey, there are some moments that stand out, but the one that really stands out would be early June 2024. That day was my happiest and the best day of my life. It all began early January 2024. I was in a quasi-military school in a residential program where I agreed to go for five and a half months. It was cool, but it wasn’t the same. My day would start at four-thirty AM doing exercises, making our bed, cleaning our space, and at six-thirty AM we would go
Continue ReadingScary Stories
-Frederick Mason, USP Tucson in Tucson, AZ To this point, I’ve written nearly six hundred essays from USP Tucson, but before I was sent here, I was writing at other places. In fact, I’ve been writing since about the third or forth grade, on through high school, through college and beyond. But I remember writing a scary story and I did it as a co-op project with a juvenile while in county jail. I didn’t realize how it affected others, but it is a reminder that writers can have an impact on others, even if it’s of the horror genre.
Continue ReadingStay Goal-Orientated
-Daniel Ballard, San Quentin State Prison, CA When I was younger I had dreams. Then I came to a realization, around fifteen or sixteen years old that I defined a dream of what actually a dream was: just a dream. Nothing more, nothing less, due to the fact that I can lay down tonight, close my eyes and dream of something or someone I have no knowledge of and feel very distant from. So, my actual dream is a goal, something while I’m wide eyed awake that can be placed and put into a proper perspective. While doing so, I
Continue Reading