Excerpts from "True Notebooks" by Mark Salzman

So I just finished this book by Mark Salzman, which is the true story of how he got guilt tripped into starting a writing class at a juvenile hall in California. The majority of his students have been charged with murder. The following excerpts stood out to me. The first is just a series of dialogue, while the second was written by one of the inmates.

“You preachin’ to the choir,” Toa said. “I got dealt shitty cards just like you, but it’s how I played em got me in here. Whatever you into, you in it by choice.”
 “So you sayin’ we deserve to get locked up for life for one mistake we made?” Victor asked, getting heated up.
 “I’m sayin’ if you want the benefit, you gotta face the consequences. Same goes for society. They want the benefit of lockin’ kids up and throwin’ away the key? They playin’ they cards wrong. They gonna face the consequences.” 

"Amerikkka hasn’t been the America we were promised. For centuries Amerikkka has been spitting in our faces and making this world a much better fucked-up place. Instead of colleges, more schools, and programs to help those who need help, they spend all our money on more penitentiaries and everything else to keep us away from perpetuity. Instead of dealing with the problem, they figure keep us away in solitary for a long time will solve the problem but it just creates more habits. They have been hiding our history for years and teaching us false information about the past and our ancestors. Fuck Amerikkka. Treat us with disrespect, switching the situation against the world. Now we hating." -Dale

Anger

People have said to me in the past that I’ve no reason to be angry. Like people who come from intact families and weren’t ever abused or anything don’t have problems. This always frustrated me to no end, because who is anyone else to judge my life from the outside and come to a conclusion that I’ve got nothing to be angry about?

But for as long as I can remember I’ve held this deep-seated anger, this rage, and only certain circumstances bring it out. I don’t quite know if some activating event triggered the rage, and it’s been with me ever since. Or maybe it’s just always been there, the way that some people are just innately drawn to liking school or painting. Maybe I’m just wired to have passionate emotions.

One thing that’s for certain, my parents were ill equipped to handle me. Despite fulfilling all my survival needs and trying their god darn damndest, they were just completely clueless when it came to supporting me emotionally or validating my ever-changing feelings. And how could they know? How could they possibly become in tune with what I really needed, if I was always pushing them away? Years of isolation signaled to my parents that I was better off working independently, and now, I don’t know who to be more angry with. My parents, for their flawed perception and lack of persistence? Or myself, for always being too afraid to ask for help.

Let Go

We don't have to be the people we've always been afraid we would turn into. Everyone's got some degree of baggage or bullshit. But the difference between who we are and who we want to be lies within us. We have the capacity to initiate change. I can be secure, and loving, and kind despite having been, for so long, insecure, selfish, and judgmental. I realize now that the fear has always been to step outside of myself. To give. To care. To listen. To dance. To live. To be. I've been afraid of letting go of the scared little 10 year old in me for some time now, afraid that if I lost her then I'd lose myself completely. For who are we without our pain? What no one ever told me is that you shouldn't ever take your pain and build yourself a house around it. Instead, take your pain and embrace it, make it a part of you, and then open up the front door and let go. Cut the strings. Drop the controls. Fly free.

the fight

I try to fight the pull
Like a fishhook through the bellybutton
Of a mattress filled with quicksand
Soft surfaces are never honest
On the inside they’ve got tricks
Can ignite a fight in you
To run free
It’s neither dear old friend
Nor arrogant foe
Just pure sport
And the art of trying to be happy

Every word you say is poison
Sweet sticky poison dripping down my eardrums
On the surface it is fizzing
Acute eyes may say soaking
But I know it to be burning
Deeper down through me
Melting into a sandy mold
So even when I leave
A part of me's still there

So instead for every drop
I take another drink
Let it ignite a fight down my chest
Let it latch the gates on irrelevant thought
Let it bind me down with chains
Let the poison poison me

Now I don’t want to leave here
The poison is like perfect uppers
Pulling at my control
Burning through my body
Because I know that if I fight
The mattress always wins
And the poison always conquers
So why not change the strategy?
And anyway
I am always fighting
A scared little girl
Whose afraid to feel real love
But maybe she's grown up some

It's possible that I'm simply incapable of letting things go...which is of course, devastating.

Influences

I was inspired to write this by a character in a failed tv show set in the UK

Lila

Im the fragile one with the sad eyes
Who winks at everyone
Who doesn’t deserve a second breath
My dress is always up around my knees
His hands are always gripping
Never tender
Once perfect flesh now cracking
Decaying lifeless slab of desert sand
But I’ll lay back if you promise
It will all be over soon
And in the morning
I’ll even make you breakfast.

Playgrounds

It’s been a while.
Hasn’t it, since we last sat slumped
In rubber swings with rusted chains.
Not knowing what it meant
Just to be comforted by the company.
Those nights came and went
Like wildfire spreading through my lungs.
Choking me for hours, and I could only sit there blankly.
Suffocating.
Until the heat would turn.
And then our cheeks would graze.
My freckles fresh, your skin pealing off in thick layers.
Our summer metamorphosis.
We were just two kids without a plan.
I knew you then, I thought so.
Not the mask you wore,
But the face you’d tried long to cover up.
The summer brought you back to simpler means.
Brought you back to me.
You said you'd be a kid forever,
But I was never fooled.
Plucking clovers out of the summer sky.
Wishing on the stars that things would stay.
You were always
Stealing bits and pieces of my heart,
But never giving them back.
I was young, always too willing to lose myself.
In love with love.
Bewitched by the idea.
Sitting still has come a painful reminder.
I can’t remember when we last swung
From one topic to the next,
Care-free and to the point.
Honest.
Now everything’s a strategy to get from A to B.
And you’re never saying anything.
Never listening.
You only want to move your lips
And stare at the parts I try to cover up.
You see me for what you want to see.
For innocence.
And the only thing you ever did right.
But now there’s wrinkles where our smiles should be.
And conviction in the creases.
Your every word rehearsed,
Dripping with charming wit.
Your mask a fiery red.
It all ends.
I no longer know you any more than a favored song.
Something to rapture you for a minute or two,
And then leave you staring blankly
Wondering why there's such a sharp pain
Shooting down your chest
And into clench fists waiting for their chance
To be set free.
How silly to wait around on something
That hurts like perfect smiles,
Just before it stings like acid tears.
Maybe I'm never going back.
It's hard to tell which way the wind will blow,
because there's nothing there to gage it on.