Never Let the Monster Inside Take Control
A drawing from inside.
This section publishes creative contributions mostly from currently and formerly incarcerated people. It includes short-stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, and much more.
If you have something creative to submit to us, we would love to read it, or see it, and publish it in About Time – please write to us!

A drawing from inside.
Cold blows the wind tonight, sweetheart, cold are the drops of rain, cold are the four walls of my cell, so cold I shall remain.
These “emotions” that carry me. It’s from these that you see me. Let not what you see, be all I can be. I’m so much more, this isn’t all.
A girl trying to find her soul, an escape with rope and toe up a tree, a knot a swing.
No mail, no bail, just jail. Hail and rain, rain and suffering, silently ingrained.
Shout out to all you maintenance workers, from painting to plumbing, youse know you’re the reasons these places don’t collapse in on us!
On an icy day, we’ll meet again, on a silent path, free from pain. No greetings spoken, no sparks to fly, just a quiet knowing in each other’s eye.

Why should you suffer for my pain. Knowledge in this I should try to gain. Does it feel I have left you alone? It may feel I have cut you to the bone.

The calls we hear every day, whether guilty or claiming you’re innocent, there’s a price we each must pay. “It’s a privilege not a right” you’ll hear the screws say, but the moment you’re behind those bars, your control is taken away.

A poem for the one true love of my life, I wish I could change the past, but I can only change my future.

She saw his will and was convinced, she listened to his lies and was convinced, she looked into his eyes and trusted his smiles, she was convinced.

I yearn to spend loving time with my Mother, to reunite with my sister and brother, to introduce my kin to the new man I am.

I hear the sirens wailing, I know the cops are coming, to my door, I let down my family, even my kids, friends and all.

Life is only short my son, with so many paths to take, life is an uphill struggle, with every step you make. That’s why you must treasure life, with every second of the day, because you may never know, when it’s your turn to go away.

Once upon a time, a sleepy little shrub lived a contented but impoverished life in a quiet shady corner of a garden. Although the little shrub did not complain, it was much smaller than most of its other friends, and its branches were thin and twig-like.


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