“Like the flames of hell lick at one’s soul; the coal’s of death row burn with a constant battle between a thirst for life

and a thirst to quickly see it pass you by.”

Gabriel Gonzalez

10/19/06 a young man decided to kill himself

And so he died

With a sliced throat and arms in his cage

In the stillness of 3.45 in the morning...

His denied justice became final

It collapsed on him

Like a great wave

Slamming into a mountain of rocks.

Feeling crushed that his innocence was ignored

His justice denied, and his state-sanctioned murder set to be executed

He refused to give the injustice system the pleasure of his judicial murder---

He slit his throat and arms seeing it his only escape

From giving his judicial murderers he sick pleasure

Of watching him die at their hands.

Written on the cage wall in his own blood were the words:

“I DIDN’T DO IT”

As he was forced to suicide so as not to give his murderers the

Pleasure of murdering him for a crime he did not commit

His lifeless body lay bloody and dead (he escaped the best he could)

AND all sat in silence

Affected and drained,

Because his death lingered on.

Minutes became hours,

Days became Nights,

And tomorrow turned

Into yesterdays.

But eventually, the silence broke,

Shouts rang out,

And people calmed their fears

About succumbing to the same fate.

The above poem is dedicated to Michael Dewayne Johnson (who killed himself on 10/19/06) and all the men on death row before me or after me that have been victim to some element of state-sanctioned murder whether by the state or driven to it by their own hands to evade the state murder. To see them leave, or shall I say exit in a murderous fashion, was almost like seeing an extension of myself leave because it is now the world that has become me in many shapes and forms. It seems everything was made to exist and perish, but to see men bleed just to see if they are alive is like watching old flesh wounds tear open time and time again too reassert their very existence in a world where chaos and confusion becomes our truest of allies.

Sometimes memories sleep through my veins wishing I was empty so as not to see the men I so often called soldiers leave with their heads held high trying to find comfort as they see new lights going to new horizons far away from the valley of death that awakes their shadows. When I think of the society that has taken their lives just as they accused them of taking lives, I wrote thoughts in such a troubled state that it often seemed as if the pen was possessed. A mind of its own desperately trying to feel for a reason to continue. Even as I fool myself to believe I can hate, the feeling pretends to comfort me from feeling human, but it doesn’t. It only shortens my breath, tightens my eyes, and makes me wish I was someone else except a witness to the Neo-holocaust around me that seems to amount to nothing at all in the eyes of the executioner.

Some guys would say to me, “man, I really don’t know what to say to the media. Like the victim’s family, the state and my very own family stares at me strapped to the gurney like some uncontrollable beast awaiting death in minutes?” The only time words seem to fail me is at those moments, and then the only thing I can ever say is some unintelligible phrase that makes me feel no help at all, only to eventually end up saying: “say what’s in your heart is all you can ever do.” It is often after those moments that I wrote a poem like the one I wrote today and will continue to share, and as I continue to write them, I become my own stranger each time I try to fully understand what it is I meant by each word I used. It almost seems like I don’t write these poems at all, but instead become a tool to leave a little piece of them here after they’re gone.

As I give this poem and the more to come to you all, I also give a story of someone who was what we all are... HUMAN. To understand the story look where you want to look to find an ending, because if we just believe they are still here with us, here with me, they will never leave, but dwell inside some place for all to see.