New York State Literary Center

Notes From Monroe County Jail, When You Fail Part of Me Dies

Monroe County Jail

2010

Dale Davis, Founder and Executive Director of NYSLC, adapted the writing of the incarcerated youth with whom she worked at Monroe County Jail in the summer of 2010 to create Notes From Monroe County Jail, When You Fail Part of Me Dies

INTRODUCTION TO NOTES FROM MONROE COUNTY JAIL, WHEN YOU FAIL PART OF ME DIES

One of the incarcerated youth at Monroe County Jail wrote this poem after reading Jimmy Santiago Baca’s poem “Like An Animal.”

Monroe County Jail

I see kids grow up in a facility like this.

I see grown men

gradually get pulled down.

I see fear grow to an extent that horrifies my mind.

I see black kids become animals of jail.

I see great minds become useless in months.

I see depression take over young lives.

I see stress turn men into beasts.

I see the beasts turn into the devil himself.

I see kids with no pride.

You see I am a young man who has been through the struggle, corrupted by crime and drugs, always in trouble, always getting put down, not knowing which way is up. When I went to sleep all I wanted was to be hugged. My family was out of shape, misplaced, misguided, walking around with a lot of hurt. I tried to hide it, denied it. The fact was I was by myself.

In these walls

I cry from nightmares

that are reality.

I feel enslaved.

If these walls could talk,

they would say they know me.

Do they?

The poem led to a group discussion on what are you searching for in your life? What do you believe?

What do you love? What do you want out of life? How can someone know you, the real you? The discussion led to written notes which I adapted for Notes From Monroe County Jail, When You Fail Part of Me Dies to communicate how youth in Monroe County Jail saw themselves.

Dale Davis

INTRODUCTION TO NOTES FROM MONROE COUNTY JAIL, WHEN YOU FAIL PART OF ME DIES

This play is about us, incarcerated youth in Monroe County Jail. This play is about our lives, our struggles, and it gives you a chance to see past these orange jumpers and into our hearts.

Stop, look, and listen to what this play, to what our notes are about. I am much more than a young man locked up. I want my future to be filled with love and prosperity. I am tired of being handcuffed. I am tired of my life stopping in the blink of an eye.

Do you want to reverse the cycle of lost dreams, broken hearts, broken homes, and fallen victims?

Who do you think is paying attention to the number of youth incarcerated as adults? Who do you think cares? I grow older and the world gets colder. I am weighed down by the pain of being in here.

The only truth of our youth is we grew up with consequences.

What does the world hold for me?

I am setting the scene. I am living in pain with cells all around me. I am a statistic, sixteen and in jail.

These are our notes to the world.

FROM THE SCRIPT NOTES FROM MONROE COUNTY JAIL, WHEN YOU FAIL PART OF ME DIES

Look me in the eyes!

Look me in my eyes and tell me whom you see!

Do you see someone who can be free and make it

or do you see someone who can’t survive and needs to be on the street?

Look me in the eyes and tell me whom you see!

Do you see someone who’s stingy and shows no sympathy?

When I look in the mirror and look at myself

I see someone who didn’t have to make the choices he made.

Can you judge me?

Look me in the eyes and show me I am someone

by not judging me.

This note goes out to whom it may concern.

I see me in each one of your eyes.
When you fail part of me dies!

Don’t treat me like a tool.

Show me I’m valuable.
School me by showing me.

. . . .

I've looked death in the eye so many times

that deep in my soul I know I am running out of lifelines

with no place to go.

My father doesn’t know and my mother doesn’t care.

Does it matter to anyone if I am in here or if I’m where?

What am I supposed to do?

It’s a cold world.

I have it tattooed on me just to remind me every day.

I am a RCSD drop out.

What can I say,

just like the statistics state, I ended up in MCJ.

Why?

We have things we want to say,

things that no one ever asked us about.

If you want to know who I am,

listen.

I am looking for attention.

I am looking for love.

When I first came in,

I didn’t know what to expect.

I felt like I was in a movie.

This is my first time ever being sent to jail.

I started looking for fights because of my image of jail.

Really though it’s just a whole bunch of people who are just looking to do their time.

Along with this comes fights, extortion, and anger.

I automatically adopted the same qualities.

Now it really feels like a movie because I’m just acting,

my real feelings are paranoia and regret,

and I don’t know when or where or how to express them.

. . . .

R.I.P. Shy

Seeing you, my brother, die on Remington and Boston made me feel like I won’t make it to twenty-five. The reason why I write this is because seeing people die that used to be on the corner or go to jail before they hit twenty-five years old makes me feel like I’m going on the same path. It makes me feel like we have no future in Rochester at all.

I am.
I was.

I’m going to be

eighty-six days in jail.

I am just a kid trying to be a man.

Some people gangbang, but they don’t really understand.

I am just a young boy.

I look around my cell; all I see is a bed and desk.

I get lost in my dreams because I’m in jail thinking about my family

and why jail reminds me of what Hell must be like.

I pray to God every day that He will give me that second chance.

I’m trying not to die in jail.

It is 2010, and there are more brothers in jail, more than ever.

It’s pain, tears, and an empty soul, that’s what’s inside of me.

Why? Can I blame all this on the society?

. . . .

Me, I was labeled. I was in put in a Special Education class in school and put on a pill for ADHD. The pill was uncontrollable. I woke up early, took the pill and zoned out. With every step I got lost in myself, and I lost myself in the pain. I didn’t understand why I didn’t feel the same. My expression changed. My face was dull, and I was unable to show my true name. I was looking out at the world through my eyes, but I was unable to act in a manner in which I was comfortable.

I told them I wasn’t going to school unless they took me out of Special Education classes.

There were seven of us in that Special Education class. People walked by and pointed in the glass window and said, “Look at the retards.” I stopped doing my work, and I left the room. I got into fights, and I got suspended for not doing what I was told. They passed me though whether I did any work or not.

I didn’t get an education.

Once you get kicked out of class, it’s easy to get influenced. I smoked weed in the basement of the school.

This is the way I grew up. I didn’t fit in. I fit in to the negative group. Now I’m here.

. . . .

The play is about us, about kids in jail who didn’t make it in school, about kids who are poor, about kids who have a lot of pain in their lives. We know our happiness and our safety are never addressed. We know our wrong behavior is. Is this why so many of us in here are the way we are?

None of us want to be here.

I don’t want to be here. I wish I were home.

Here

it feels like I died.

It feels like when I cry

it doesn’t mean anything at all,

like all I did was shed a tear.

I have so many dreams,

but being in jail slowly fades them away.

I lose hope every time I go to court.

I watched other people mess up, and I always told myself I’ll never be in jail.

This is Rochester, New York.

There is nowhere to go.

Everyone makes mistakes,

and I did too.