by Jasmin Kern
We hang our family's pictures on a cardboard that we get for our paper. Then we push a hole through it to hang it on our beds cause we are not allowed to hang them on the walls. We use jolly juice on our hair: that is jolly ranchers and hot water from the hot pot and shake it up until the melt. Then it is hair spray. We use color pencils for 3 things. The first thing is we color pictures for a little color. The next thing we do with the color pencils is make-up. We put them in hot water, let them sit for a minute. Then we use them to look good and feel good. The third thing we do is we smash them and get the lead out. Once we get the lead out we smash it up as small as we can get it. Then we put hot water from the hot pot, let it melt the color pencil lead. Then we can tie dye the white clothes that we pay for. And that is the thing we do to try to look and feel good in jail.
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No matter who we are or where we are, you are right that everyone wants to look and feel good. Your vivid language describing the creative ways you do that in jail were powerful.
ReplyDelete-- Jodi
very powerful imagery.
ReplyDeleteI read this quite a few days ago, got interrupted, and didn't have time to come back and respond until now, but I've kept thinking about what you wrote. I had no idea you wouldn't be allowed to put pictures on your walls. I didn't know you don't have hairspray or make-up. I don't know very much about life in jail at all. I keep thinking about how we all need color to look at and pictures to remind us of people in our lives. And I keep imagining you and the other women taking time to make yourselves feel and look good. I didn't have very many mental pictures of you and the other writers before now; it was like I'd been hearing your voices over the phone, and now I've glimpsed you as well as heard you.
ReplyDeleteSo thanks for that.
Best,
Anna Wold