Free Your Mind! Blogs, Zines, Pamphlets, Texts written by Coyote, who was incarcerated in Nevada, in the solitary confinement units. This site is an archive.
The caseworkers here at Ely State Prison have become so good at lying that it scares me. They're always out to give us the classic run around, just to see us running in circles like dogs chasing their tails. I've trained myself not to believe anything they say and never get my hopes up. I am able to live with the understanding that there isn't very much I have coming from them. I know these people don't care about me, they don't care about my problems in life or what the hell I'm going through. They're not going to help me, they're not here for that. These lying caseworkers are so full of shit, they can keep on walking past my cell to the next one. I'm cool right here. Fuck 'em.
Those who live in fear of authority, live in slavery. Mental slavery, psychological slavery, and even physical slavery. Those who live in fear of authority are in a prison all of their own. A prison of their own making.
I am a prisoner to concrete and steel, but I am not imprisoned by fear. I do not conduct myself with those who are in fear of authority. We who live in prison are sure to not allow the walls to chip away at our existence; but with our spirit and attitude of resistance we chip away the walls and barriers that presume to behold us.
The thoughts that seep to the strengthened center of our well-being were created from the sheer will to survive under drastic circumstances. We are refined by hardships when befriended by darkness and we come out strengthened in the center and sharp around the edges, ready to cut through our bonds with a diligent ease.
It is will power that guides us through these sloppy situations. It is the spirit of resistance that keeps us alive and well. We are not imprisoned by our fears, we are determined to perservere.
At the time of this writing, I've been here at Ely State prison for a solid 10 years. I've been through all the motions, all the ups and downs, all the trials and tribulations. I've been in fights, I've sent officers to the hospital, I've been sent to the hole for alleged stabbings, I've fought with the goon squad on cell extractions, I've participated in riots and I've demonstrated all kinds of acts of real resistance. I've been shot, gassed, tazered--you name it, I've been through it all.
Wherever I go in this prison, I am locked down. There's only one unit in this prison that isn't locked down and the caseworkers and wardens say that I am not eligible for that unit because of my history of institutional violence. All of my visits have been behind glass for almost 9 years now. They won't let me have contact visits with my family or friends because of my history of institutional violence.
So I am stuck, whether I am in the hole, or in "General populockdown", it doesn't matter, they will not give me any type of breathing room.
So, other than the fact that I will one day be released from prison, I have no incentive to do good, or follow their petty rules. I have no hope, nothing to look forward to. I’ll be here in Ely State prison until I go home, stuck in a cell, on 23 hour lock down, trying to maintain and keep from losing my cool. It's hard, sometimes it's a real struggle when you're confined to these cells for long periods of time, your thinking gets a bit distorted and it can take one little thing to set you off. when rage and aggression set in, you go flying off the handle before even thinking twice about it. It’s a psychological struggle and we are up against great odds.
This place has the ability and the tendency to do great amounts of damage to our psyche and our minds. We are living in a real-live man-made hell.
We need people on the outs to show their concern and get involved in our lives and struggles. We need people to send us letters and books and give us hope and something to look forward to. We need people on the outs to accept our calls and give us good, healthy, productive conversations to get our minds off of this sick, demented place for a little while. We need people to care about us and about what we're going through in here. We need support from people on the outside.
The psychological torment that takes place in this prison can be unbearable at times. If our souls are out of tune and our minds aren't strong and if our hearts are in the wrong place, then we are lost to this cold, desolate darkness. It takes a lot of strength and a good amount of resistance to get through this.
Listen up! There's nothing cool about this place, there's nothing cool about being here. This place sucks.
When we rise we fight, all day, all night, we fight. We fight to overcome, we fight to live, we fight to survive, we fight to win, we fight to prevail. Every day is a fight, a struggle, a challenge, every day is a battle. We fight and fight and fight. Struggle, and strive and thrive to survive. We fight with one another, we fight against our captors, we fight the system, we fight oppression, we fight hunger, we fight agony, we fight depression. We train, spar and prepare. There's no breaks, no time-outs, no tapping out, no quitting, no giving up. Fight, fight, fight. We fight to change, we fight to rise above the madness, we fight to make it through. Man-up, handle-up, face up to every challenge and to every challenger. It's a mental kumite, it's a spiritual kumite, it's an emotional kumite, it's a physical kumite. We fight with God, we fight with the Devil, we fight with our own restless souls, we create enemies and fight them too. We fight with all our hearts and we fight with all our might. Strength, endurance, speed. We fight one battle after the next, we feel no pain, we have no fear, we just keep fighting to persevere. Focus, we need to focus, we must stay focused, can't lose our focus. like an eagle we swoop, like a tiger we strike. We strike back when struck, we swing when swung upon, we initiate and engage and we combat the battles we lose only to inspire us to comeback and fight harder and harder and harder. Punch, kick, strike. We fight and we struggle and we resist.
Everyday is a kumite, step into the arena, step into the ring, step into the dojo, step onto the mat. Come out to the yard, step onto the battlefield. Gladiator, samurai, soldier, kyokushin, warrior, guerrilla, prisoner. Fight! Fight! Fight!
The mindless minds in these endless times do not want to think, because thinking is too real. The heartless hearts in these lonely, miserable times, do not want to think. We do not want to have to feel or deal with reality or face life, because it's all too much, it's all too real.
So we nullify, dull, deteriorate, and dumb ourselves down with television, magazines, gangsterism, fantasies and day dreams. We let our minds fade away with our lives, silently hoping and watching for something to come along and shake us, awaken us and snap us back into reality, causing us to take charge of our situation before it's too late, causing us to take control of our lives, with that long, forgotten fire burning and raging in our hearts and minds once again. We sit and we pray and we hope and we wish that one day, some day, we may reawaken to the passion of life and be able to deal with reality, once again.
But until then, we turn our minds off and our televisions on. We put our books down and pick up magazines full of fakeness and materialism and we sit here and fade away, until a rainy day, fuck the world, we say.
"Fuck the Police". These 3 words can be found everywhere in these madhouses. Fuck the police, scribed on the walls, fuck the police, scratched into the desks, fuck the police, carved into the bunks, fuck the police, etched into the doors, etched into our minds. Fuck those slimy, greasy bastards, fuck them pigs.
That is the first commandment that we live by in here, the golden rule, as we live in these volatile situations, hostility towards our captors is the fuel that keeps us going. The correctional officers are the police, they work for the system, the government, so they're pigs too. The rats, the snitches, the informants and the inmates on protective custody, they are the police too. They work for the man, cooperating and operating against other prisoners, though they are prisoners themselves. In this world, that makes them the biggest pieces of shit around these shit-filled sewers. Not even the pigs respect them, they're cowards, and they are the police too, so fuck them.
This is prison, this isn't Disneyland. People aren't playing, not everybody is friendly around here, there are some people around here who would stick some steel in your neck, without blinking an eye, then go walk back to the table, sit down and eat their meal, or your meal, like nothing happened. This is prison.
Fuck the system, that's what we say when we pray, cuz that's what we feel in our hearts. We know this ain't right, we know it's foul, we know we're being screwed, cheated, manipulated and deceived. We know it in our hearts. Fuck the system.
We live with so much hostility in our hearts, it's what motivates us to stay alive, but it's a double-edged sword as we continue on the path of SELF-DESTRUCTION cuz we do not truly understand how we can actually rise above this madness, we do not truly comprehend how we can escape these chains and live truthfully.
All we know is piracy, banditry, hoodlumism, thuggery, and gangsterism, that's all we know as we sit here and say fuck the system. We don't ask ourselves, or each other, how can we organize ourselves in here? We don't ask ourselves, or each other, how can we elevate ourselves in here? We don't ask ourselves, or each other, how can we live truthfully, how can we get free and rise above this oppression? We don't think about these things, because we don't see the possibility of these things, as we are blinded by our own ignorance and blinded by our own violence towards one another, we can't see past our own futile situations, all we know is that we have to survive, so we don't get cheated or shorted or knocked off by the next motherfucker.
But the writings on the wall, for those who want to read it, it's right there, etched, sketched, scratched, scribed, carved or written, it's right there. Three words, fuck the police, it's right there, written on the wall, desk, bunk, ceiling, floor, it's right there.
An eagle built a nest on a tree, and hatched out some eaglets, and a wild sow brought her litter under the tree, and the sow rooted around the tree and hunted in the woods, and when night came she would bring her young something to eat. And the eagle and the sow lived in neighborly fashion.
And a grimalkin laid her plans to destroy the eaglets and the little sucking pigs. She went to the eagle and said: "Eagle you had better not fly very far away. Beware of the sow, she is planning an evil design. She is going to undermine the roots of the tree. You see she is rooting all the time."
Then the grimalkin went to the sow and said: "Sow, you have not a good neighbor. Last evening I heard the eagle saying to her eaglets: "My dear little eaglets, I am going to treat you to a nice little pig. Just as the sow is gone, I will bring you a little young sucking pig!"
From that time the eagle ceased to fly out after prey, and the sow did not go any more into the forest. The eaglets and the young pigs perished of starvation, and the grimalkin feasted on them.
True seekers of knowledge would probably appreciate the fact that there is a lot of' wisdom and knowledge to be found in fables. Practically every culture has their own fables, there is so much that can be learned from fables, things like strategy, wisdom, practical ways of living, counsel and instructions on various themes of life. How could one not appreciate a good fable every now and then right? So, I wanted to share this particular fable with you, because there's a lot of truth in it, truth that applies to our everyday situation as prisoners.
The strategy of the grimalkin in this fable is very similar to that of the "Divide and Conquer" strategy that our oppressors use on us today. When we become mistrustful of each other, when we fight each other and kill each other, we are giving our oppressor (the grimalkin) - our true enemy - absolute power over us. As long as we are going at it with each other, they don't have to worry about us trying to rise up against them.
How can we be each other’s enemy when we are in the same communities, prisons and in the trenches together, going through the same shit, suffering from the same type of poverty and the same afflictions together? No, brothers and sisters, we are not each other’s enemies, we need to stop hating each other and come to realize that it's the grimalkin who is profiting off of our self-destructive behavior, the grimalkin is our true enemy.
The sooner we realize this the sooner we will be able to reach some type of middle-ground between us and eventually we can try to come together and run the grimalkin down. There's a couple lessons that can be learned from this fable of the "Eagle and the Sow." But one of the most important one is one of the oldest, "Know your Enemy."
AII I want is what I got coming and for you to leave me alone. There's no need to stop at my cell and ask me how am I doing today, you don't care how I'm doing, you don't really want to know how I'm doing, you only ask to see what kind of state of mind I'm in, if I'm on some "fuck the police shit", or if I'm safe for you to be around, that's the only reason you ask how I'm doing today, to make sure you're safe, not cuz you actually care, so don't even ask. No need to stand at my door smiling, being nice, trying to hold a fake ass conversation with me about this, that or the other, if I need something I’ll let you know, if not just give me my meal, or my mail or whatever and move on.
I don't want your little extras, the last thing I want is to be spoiled by the pigs, so you can keep your little extra this and your little extra that, take it and give it to one of your little rats. I don't want it, I don't need it, just give me my full issue of what I'm supposed to get and roll on to the next cell. Just leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone, but if you go out of your way to mess with me, then I'm going to go out of my way to mess with you. And this is going to be an unsafe environment for both of us.
Though I am loved, I am alone, left to sit and suffer in a cold, desolate cell of confinement. On the other side of these prison gates I have many people who love and care about me, who are touched by my courage and compassion, and who are moved by my love for them and by my love for life, freedom, and justice. The sad reality, though, is that they're out there and I'm in here, alone ....
I am surrounded by people who like to think that they're my enemies, surrounded by foulness and perversion, and blanketed by sheer coldness. I have no friends, just a few people that I talk to from time to time, people who share no true feelings of connectedness with me; their conversations might be good sometimes, and comforting, but there's no camaraderie between us. People in here will talk to you one day and then decide that they don't want to talk to you ever again; that's just the way it goes in here. It's something that a prisoner has to deal with, knowing that the only person in here that you can truly depend on is yourself.
We have to find ways to deal with this loneliness so it doesn't take us under.
Overcoming loneliness is a huge part of survival in prison. Loneliness is painful. It's agonizing to my soul. To know that I could be in here, in this world, with other people around me, in cells next to me, above or below me, and still feel unconnected to anyone, and still feel like I don't really know someone, or that nobody really understands me, and to feel like I cannot truly trust another man in here - it defines the feeling of suffering. To be alone is to suffer.
In solitude I suffer. My heart dies, my blood turns cold and the spark of life leaves my eyes; when you look into them now all you can see is anger, pain, loneliness, and suffering, and all I can do is sit here and ask myself, what have I done to deserve this? What did I do to have to be forced to live in such torment?
For I know in my heart of hearts that I'm a good man. I know in my heart that I live by the principles of righteousness, respect, honor, integrity, fairness, equality; and I know that I am a man who has stood up for my beliefs and who has stood up for my rights, and who has also been beaten down for standing up for them. But still I am left to live in solitude, like I am some kind of piece of shit or something.
In prison that' s the price we have to pay for being a man who stands up for himself and for what he believes is good and right. We have to pay for that by sitting and suffering in solitary confinement until the authorities feel that they have broken you down. They try to break your will, break your spirit and your determination, and they try to destroy you. The things that we see as good and the things that we see as being right are the things that we are being punished for.
I sit here in solitude, feeling so alone. Tormented by my loneliness, and even though another man lives in the cell to my right, and another man lives in the cell to my left, and a man lives in the cell right above me, I feel no connection with any of them; there's no trust between us and absolutely no sense of camaraderie, and it kills me inside.
I understand that all of this is by design, and I want to be strong, I want to resist, I want to overcome, because I know I can't give in, I know I can't surrender, I know I can't let my oppressors break me; but deep down inside I know that no matter what I do, I cannot win, for either way they are slowly destroying me; whether I fight or surrender, they have already won. But I just can't give them the satisfaction in letting them know that they've destroyed me with loneliness, so I continue to fight and I continue to resist, because anything less would be suicidal ....
Let us abandon our restrictions and live freely from the truth of our hearts. Let us love life as we love our children, and let us love our children as we love life.
The walls of these prisons can only keep our bodies contained for so long, but cannot close in on our minds when we live with resistance in our hearts. I encourage you who read this to learn how to think for yourselves.
In these cells of seclusion we learn to embrace knowledge in its rawest form and when you have become accustomed to embrace what is real and what is true, you naturally reject all that is false and untrue.
Let us abandon our falsehoods as we embrace knowledge and let us share our knowledge to those in need of it, so that the mind of the prisoner can abandon his shackles once for always.
The seeds of resistance have been planted in the soul of the prisoners' heart and bears fruit in the prisoners' mind. Consciousness is forever sweet and so full of soul. It should always be shared and enjoyed. Hold on to it, but pass it on ...
Resistance is in my heart and it stays in my heart. As humans we grow, we develop and we change, but some things never change. Resistance has always been in my heart and always will be. The things that are in our hearts are the things that keep us going, what's in your heart stays in your heart, unless you lose your heart, and if you lose your heart you pretty much die. Your heart is like your lifeline, when you lose your heart you lose your life. I take this literally, 'cuz I'm a soldier and I know what's in my heart, and what keeps it going. It's not hate, it's love. love tor yourself, love for life, love for freedom, justice and equality. My resistance comes from love, not hate, and it's what keeps me going, it's what is in my heart. Love, resistance, truth.
These walls were built with hate and I imagine that they will be destroyed with hate. In a sanatorium we live, we struggle, and we die. How do we overcome this?
They call it ELY STATE PRISON, I call it Ely State Zoo. Come watch us and see what we do while we sit in our cages. Listen to our beastly roars and our soul-wrenching howls and our lonesome chirps. We live in cages called cells. We live in hell where despair pervades the atmosphere of our hearts. We live in institutions where the air is stale and the walls are pale. We live in agony.
Listen to the sound of dread as it enters your cell through the ventilation system: "Fuck the system, buck the system": words that still ring in our ears, even though some stopped trying a long time ago. We don't care any more, and when you stop caring, you begin to go numb and your mind deteriorates, crumbles, fades.
We are the wretched, the little people with broken souls, holding on to death, refusing to let go.
This is my profane existence as I sit here and try to explain resistance. When my soul gets cold, the hate unfolds, and onto a path of destruction I go.
Despair fills the air in here, another day, another year. When she thinks of me, she sheds a tear.....
Sitting up in these solitary confinement cells, for years on end. I used to always wake up and tell myself that today is a good day to die. But, today is different: it's a good day today. I am pleased with the things I am seeing today. The good spirits and cheer of the convicts around me definitely seems to be resonating with me. Today is a good day to live.
I received a letter in the mail last night and its always good to know there are people out there who actually care about me, about my struggles, and situations and about what’s going on in here. It's definitely a good thing to maintain a solid connection with people on the outside.
Here, where I'm at, the pickle-suits do not pass out the mail until night time, so we have to wait all day and all night, just to see if we get something or not. It’s always uplifting to our spirits to receive a letter from someone or a piece of mail. For some of us, its the only thing we have to look forward to each day in here, so that's one of the things that has me feeling real good about life right now.
I'm also glad to see that other prisoners are on top of their game. There's a guy in the cell a few doors down from me, to my left, who is doing his work-out routing right now. I can hear him counting his sets: "one, two, three: ONE. one, two, three, TWO. one, two, three, THREE". There's another prisoner in the cell a few doors down from me, to my right, who's working on his case-legal work. That's some hard stuff to figure out. It takes a lot of time, study, and practice. It's never easy when you're trying to go up against a system that owns the law, writes the law, and makes the law. But, we all know those people don't play fair. There's always gonna be some kind've dirt on them, so its always possible to beat them at their own game! It’s definitely good to see people on the grind in here, its good to know that they're trying, its good to know that they still have some fight left in them, and its always good to know that they haven't given up.
There are other prisoners all around me, in their cells, who are either exercising, reading, writing, or who are deep into their studies. One of my neighbors, who I often have study sessions with, was talking to me about different styles of study; how someone could really get a good study program down if he was truly serious about his studies. He said there are all kinds of things a prisoner can study if he really wants to learn something and not only learn, but apply it too. I told him I feel him on that. There's a lot of people who read, but don't really take the time to think about what they read. They don't absorb it, they don't try to memorize it, and they don't-try to apply it. They just read to pass the time, which is cool, I guess, because its better to be doing something productive to pass the time than to be on a path of self-destruction, or to even be wasting ticks on a bunch of irrelevant nonsense. He said that he agreed with me and that sometimes he'll spend 2-3 hours reflecting on one sentence. He'll take his etymological dictionary out, he'll break out his encyclopedia and other reference materials and he'll look at the root word to find out where the word originated from, what it means, and when it came into use. Then, he will just sit back and really think about the entire sentence, to see what was underneath the surface. All could say to that was, "WOW." I definitely appreciated his conversation, and that's another thing that has me feeling good about the day today.
So far, there hasn't been any negativity today, nobody yelling or screaming out the side of their doors, calling other prisoner obscene names. Nobody's tripping on the pigs and they aren't going out of their way to mess with any of us today. Even the psych-patients seem to be quiet today. No banging on the desks or kicking on the doors - and they haven't been yelling and screaming at all today, like they often do.
The morale amongst the prisoners on this tier seems to be pretty good. The conversations have been productive and uplifting. I can definitely sense that everybody's feeling pretty good about themselves today. Everybody's joking, laughing and nobody's stressing, nobody seems to feel the need to be a tough guy or prove themselves to the next man. There's a sense of community on the tier today. It's not something you see around here often so its always a good feeling when it shines forth.
Today is a good day to live. I say that from the solitary confines of a prison cell, so I must be saying something! They haven't killed me, they haven't stripped my spirit or my joy for life. My love for freedom still remains strong. They can't stop me from loving life or from feeling human. I'm alive and it feels good to be alive.
As we swim through the gloominess and murkiness of the treacherous waters of prison life, we must stay focused, we must stay determined and we must keep resistance in our hearts. Resistance to death, resistance to boredom, resistance to stupidity, resistance to stagnation, resistance to insanity, resistance to ignorance, resistance to inhumanity, resistance to oppression and injustice--because resistance is the truth.
We must really look out for each other, as much as we look out for ourselves, because the way we are living in these graveyards is beyond foul. You gotta keep your head above the water, you gotta keep your mind right and be careful of bitter people. Stay away from miserable, hateful people and be cautious of those who want to forever remain stuck on being stupid. Be careful of those people standing at their doors, talking out the side of their necks, trying extra hard to advertise themselves as real motherfuckers, hard motherfuckers, bad motherfuckers. It’s usually people who go the extra mile to advertise themselves as this and that, who are not only insecure of who they are, but are also untrustworthy and probably under-cover informants, or cell thieves. Don't be like that and don't fall into that trap. Keep resistance and truth in your heart and fakeness can't and won't touch you, or even come near you.
Sitting in a cell, with 4 walls to keep you company on cold, lonely nights, is a perfect time for us to take a deeper look into to ourselves and to take a deeper, more critical look at our lives. Use this time as an opportunity, look at it as a blessing. Don't let others define what real is for you, Take a hard, critical look at things, question everything you hear and everything you see and let yourself find your own conclusions and definitions of what real is; of what truth is.
Try to use this time to take a deeper, harder look at who you are and a deeper look at what you stand for. Are you influenced mostly by your environment? Are you mostly influenced by your comrades and peers? (If so, is this good or bad? Why?), or are you mostly influenced by what beats in your heart and what flows through your veins?
Take a deeper look at what makes you tick and at your reasoning's, judgments, and motives of why you do what you do. Use this time to really get to know yourself, because people who are true to themselves know who and what they are, and they are apt to be resistant towards anything that isn't true. We must be true to ourselves under these circumstances, or we will drown in these dirty, treacherous waters of prison life. Don't be a follower, fuck being a leader--just be true to yourself and to those who are true to you.
Resistance is a truthful way of life. Resistance is absolutely necessary and absolutely mandatory in these graveyards. It’s good to seek truth, its good to be true. Watch out for fakes and snakes--they're everywhere. Watch out for people who are trying to pull you under the rip- tide, just to keep themselves from drowning. Be true to you, keep resistance in your heart.
If you love life, you're going to live life. You're going to find a way to prevail, you're going to keep pushing, keep striving. You're going to find a way to survive, to shine, and to make it through each difficult situation.
Those who love life are going to live life, no matter where they' re at in life: jail, prison, a broken home, stuck in a bad relationship, stuck in poverty, the ghetto, on the reservation, in the projects .... Whatever, wherever, you're going to find a way to keep existing, because you love life too much to let yourself fade, break, wither, and die.
I love life, and I'm living my life. I'm here, stuck in this hell hole, but I'm still alive, and I'm going to stay alive because I'm thankful to be alive. I wake up everyday feeling good, because I know I'm a good motherfucker. I wake up everyday feeling thankful cuz I know I'm blessed.
I deal with the struggles of being in prison and I keep moving. I deal with the despair, I deal with the agony, the suffering, the misery, and I keep living. I deal with the depression, I deal with the destruction and I deal with the hate. I keep loving life and I keep living my life. Life is beautiful, I'm thankful to be alive. I live in a graveyard, but I'm not dead, I'm alive and well.
