Audacity

The Beat Without

-PoetryIt is a courageous battle we fightTo bear utter darkness and hunger for lightTo look beyond this cage into the starsWe dare to dream behind prison barsTo embrace the beauty beneath our scarsThe audacity to hope within lock and keyTo create harmony in this turbulent seaTo understand who we areValue who we could beThough physically confined, we are spiritually freeI once was blind, but now I seeThe tiniest seed becomes a treeWe learned a truth, do no harm by touchDo not judge anyone but lift everyone upTo not be a hurdle, strive to be a bridge, in the least a

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Ed Note 29.25/26

Editor's Note

Greetings to our Beat Within community! It’s our pleasure to present this latest issue to you, and to continue publishing the deep, personal, and critical work of our incarcerated community across the nation.  This issue’s editorial note features the reflections of three of our interns from Urban High School of San Francisco. Our interns have been hard at work during the school year to ensure that all of authors’ writing makes it to print, and we can’t thank them enough for their dedication. Please join us in welcoming Selah, Ryan, and Mia to our editorial section!   Themes I Could

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Emotions All Over the Place 

Piece of the Week

-Kente, Santa Cruz I cry when my emotions are all over the place, when I am feeling sad or mad or frustrated all at the same time and they just all come out. Sometimes I can’t control it and it just comes out.  The last time I cried was last Tuesday when I was in court listening to my parents talk about how much I’m a good kid and the judge still decided to not let me come home and be with my family all over again. I wasn’t alone. I had my lovely lawyer right next to me making

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Creating a Vision 

Piece of the Week

-Jose, Santa Clara  After more than three years of being incarcerated, I have developed and created a vision that I once never had. For so many years, I was blinded to the fact that there was so much more that being contained in a single environment that is built to keep the people of color down.  The system that those so-called good Samaritans “government”  implemented on our people, was to “teach us a lesson” or to break bad habits, but all it’s done is just make us more mad and more hungry.  Some individuals will never get out of the

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How I See It

The Beat Without

 -Demar M. Nelson I’ve been walking and dreaming in prison for a long time — fifteen years to be exact. It amazes me how much I misunderstood the seriousness of life and now my mission is to get back.  At the age of twenty-one I stood before a judge and from the bench he looked at me but didn’t see me. Seeing me would have meant thinking of my past, my parents, my traumas and what led me to him. But the system does not allow that because if he were to approach his task of sentencing humans beings in

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My Most Honest Form 

The Beat Without

-Adam My self-image is complex. I am a strong minded, easy going, down to earth fella, who can accredit his mistakes to poor choices and negative behavioral patterns. Through periods of time I’ve been someone I don’t want to be; cowardly and insecure. I have, after so many past attempts, been successfully fighting to become the man I am in my most honest form.  This has taken failure and perseverance, mistake and success, but it’s taken a major amount of desire to change and be better. Honestly. When I transfixed my mind to improvement and that goal of enhancing and

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Ed Note 29.23/24

Editor's Note

Welcome readers and writers to yet another marvelous issue of The Beat Within, where incarcerated writers from near and far come together to voice their testimony. It’s a true honor to be a home for your thoughts and experiences, and we’re so grateful to each and every one of you for letting us into your journey.  We’re turning our editorial section over to two of our interns from Urban High School of San Francisco, Julia, and Lucia. Julia gives us a peak into the foundational class that The Beat works alongside with, and Lucia details the tender experience of transcribing

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My Final Beat

Piece of the Week

–Efrain, Sonoma   The Beat Within — where you can express your thoughts, emotions, and qualities to the world.  I remember my first Beat a couple years back. I thought that writing wasn’t all that, and that it wasn’t my thing until Michael convinced me to write something. At first, it was small because I thought, “Writing is not what gang members do,” but over time the topics and talks started to hit home.  I found myself writing more and more. It was a way I was able to express how I felt. I started writing on my free time. It

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