The cement floors give my feet blisters and calluses. Dried blood is encrusted on my skin and there are spots on my clothes where years of Tide haven’t been able to wash away. Dirt has permanently settled in the deep crevices of my nails.
I glance at the clock. 23 hours 40 minutes and 39 seconds. I refuse to take my medication and since everyone knows what will happen to me today, they allow it. I need some clarity.
For the last day I will be alive on this earth I want my mind to be clear, unlike the fog that washes over me once I push the tiny red, orange, light blue, and white pills down the back of my throat with my tongue. Clarity. That’s what I need today, well that, and to be breathing tomorrow, but we all know that won’t happen. I might not have been able to control much since I’ve been here, but clarity, I can give myself that.
I didn’t sleep last night. I’m not gonna waste what little time I have left sleeping. I’m not even tired. I reach in my pocket, pull out a piece of chalk and look over to the last section of the wall that is not yet buried behind vertical white lines of chalk that is so faded you can hardly tell it’s there. ***
“Wait!” I yelled as they pushed me in the cell and closed the gate. “You’re making a big mistake please you gotta believe me! I didn’t kill her, please! Please!” They ignored me.
I’m cold. Is it always gonna be so cold in here? Who am I kidding, that’s the least of my worries. I have to get a re-trail; I have to go back in there. Some of the questions were confusing I can answer them better and without even realizing it, I was crying. Through my blurry vision I saw a piece of white chalk in the one of the corners.
I walked over to it and picked it up. They can make me stay in here but each day that goes by I will know how long I’ve been here, how long this injustice is lasting. I walked over to one of the corners where the previous lines were almost completely invisible to the naked eye. I drew a fresh vertical line down one of the previous ones. One. Please don’t let me get to one thousand.
9130 lines. I go and draw another next to yesterday’s. I look at the clock. 21 hours 13 minutes and 19 seconds.
I order eggs and toast for breakfast with a side of sausage and the others look at me through jealous eyes. I can’t believe it; I would take the brown mush they call oatmeal for every meal of my life if that meant I could see the sunset tomorrow. If only they knew how lucky they were. I take it back to my cell, not having nor caring to say any goodbyes to anyone.
My taste buds rejoice at the taste of something actually edible yet are saddened by the thought that after today, they will no longer taste anything as good. I look at my last patty of sausage. ***
The hairnet lady looked at me with disgust as she slopped a spoonful of gray mush onto my plate with a grunt. I looked at her as if she were playing some kind of cruel joke that only she thought funny.
“What the hell is this s***?” I almost said but stop myself short. I solemnly walked back to my table and sit down. I picked up my spoon and put a big chunk in my mouth. Well, that was a mistake. I instantly ran to the trash and spit it up.
I sat back down and started to put little spoonfuls in my mouth. So little in fact that I could almost get away without chewing it and just swallow it whole.
I looked around. Others were eating it like no problem so what the hell was wrong with me? Did I get a bad bunch? Will every damn meal be like this? Unknown to me I accidently asked that part aloud and the person next to me whispered, “Yes, every damn meal.” I tried to laugh at his joke but he didn’t seem to find it funny at all. 
19 hours 55 minutes and 28 seconds. My stomach is satisfied for the first time in years. I pick up Gone with the Wind and open it to where I left, though it doesn’t really matter I’ve read it about 100 times cover to cover.
“In the dull twilight of the winter afternoon she came to the end of a long road which had begun the night Atlanta fell. She had set her feet upon that road a spoiled, selfish and untried girl, full of youth, warm of emotion, easily bewildered by life. Now, at the end of the road, there was nothing left of that girl……” I must have fallen asleep because when I awoke it was already three. 15 hours 4 minutes and 56 seconds. I missed lunch but that’s ok, I’m not really hungry anyway.
Still half asleep I stand up using the wall to push myself up and I wince as I feel a sharp point run along my back. What the Hell? I turn around and that’s when I remember the nail.
I forgot it was still there. Well, I don’t think I ever truly forgot. It’s a part of me, just like the scars that decorate my wrists. My subconscious comes flooding back to the front of my mind as I’m drowned, and almost suffocated with the memories that have come up for air. ***
I waited until the night, hoping, praying by some miracle I would get out today, but I finally gave in. I drew another line, 1,000 and I knew what would happen tonight.  1,000 days.
I screamed with every ounce in my soul, the loudest scream I’ve ever made. It was a silent scream to everyone who heard, but to me it was the loudest sound in the world.
“Why, why did you let me get to a 1,000 days?” I asked God. “What? No answer you’re just gonna let your child rot in here like some piece of trash you can throw away?! Damn it!  Damn it you son of a b****! Screw you. Screw you!” I punched the floors with my curled up fists, and hot tears spilled from my eyes. And the world became blurry.
I wept for about two hours and my body shook violently with the sobs. During those two hours I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even think about anything.
After I was drenched in my own tears, and my eyes were dried out, I picked myself up and walked to one of the walls. There was a nail sticking out of it. I had discovered it about a year ago when I brushed my hand against the wall and accidently pricked my finger on something.
My finger started to bleed, not a lot but enough that they gave me Neosporin on my Band-Aid. I knew I could make my finger bleed more on that nail if I wanted to do it on purpose and that’s when I promised myself that if I get to day 1,000 in here, I would use that nail to end my life.
The nail was stuck in there too hard to take completely out of wall, but I could still use it for my needs. I wrapped my left wrist around it and rubbed back and forth on the nail until it started to cut my wrist. I kept going at for about 10 minutes until the surrounding skin was raw and red, and blood dripped to the floor.
I took my right wrist and did the same thing, biting my lip to keep from screaming. The pain was bad, but not unbearable and as I laid down in my “bed” I continued to push my open wounds together, bringing up more blood.
I knew where my veins were and I could’ve made sure to cut on them, to bleed faster, but I didn’t want to die right away. I don’t know why I wanted it to be slow, but I did, and so it went.
First I started to feel dizzy, then my vision started to get real hazy and I lost track of where I was and what I was doing. I started to feel really tired, an exhaustion I’ve never felt before, and the last thing I remember that night, was closing my eyes, hoping I would never wake up.
Ever since then, I’ve never again tried to kill myself. I don’t give up, but that day I did. And I’ve never been more ashamed of myself or hated this place more than I did that day.
  Some people say that what’s in the past can’t hurt you anymore. But I call bullshit on that. The past haunts you, and never lets you go like a leech sucking the blood out of you. Only instead of blood, its sucks life.  And when you think you’ve finally forgotten the past, it crawls from hibernation out from the back of your brain and seizes you until you can hardly breathe. So, yes, I might be crazy but to me the past can kill you as fast as a bullet and as painful as one too.
Over the years, I started to believe that I really did kill her. After one goes through constant therapy and psych evaluations and is constantly told contrary to what they believe, they start to doubt themselves. Think that maybe they’ve got a screw loose.
I think what people didn’t realize was how much she meant to me. She was my friend and I miss her every day. I use to try to remember our last day together. But I don’t try anymore. It’s too painful and so I’ve stopped remembering.
They tell me that I was the last one to see her alive, well obviously I wasn’t. Her killer was the last one to see her alive. But then again, maybe I’m the killer. What if I am? What if deserve to die? Maybe I do. Either way, I’ll be dust tomorrow, carried on the wind. May my soul rest in peace.
My time here has been spent with regret, guilt, anger, sadness, almost every emotion I’ve felt right here in this cell. Except for joy, happiness, and laughter. If you asked me the last time I smiled I couldn’t tell you. Because all the good memories I had got overcrowded and pushed out by all the new bad memories I kept experiencing here.
But the not knowing, well that brings me more pain than this hell ever can. It’s the not knowing that’s slowly been killing me all these years. It’s not knowing if when I look in the mirror, if a killer is looking back. It’s the not knowing how I should feel about myself. Should I hate or love myself? Should I forgive or is there nothing that needs forgiveness? So yes, they can put me in this little hole and lock me in, strip me of clothes, and dignity, and torture me as hard as they can, but nothing will ever hurt me as much as not knowing. And to live with that, well, there’s not enough strength in the world. I look at the clock. 12 hours 34 minutes and 7 seconds.
I ask to go to the dining hall to get myself a late dinner and they allow it. They ask me what I want, tell me that I can even order from my favorite restaurant. I tell them I would like McDonalds and I order a Big Mac, large fries, a coke and a medium chocolate shake.
After about an hour I’m finally sitting down by myself enjoying my food. I picked McDonalds because when I was a kid my mom was a major health nut and she would never allow me to get any fast food. But once a year, for my Birthday dinner, I could pick anywhere to eat and I always picked McDonalds.
I bite into the burger and my mouth is satisfied. I hadn’t had this in over 25 years. At first my body tries to reject all the foreign food that seems to be going down into my stomach. But I force my body to obey with me and I go back to my cell feeling full.
I glimpse at the clock. 9 hours 2 minutes and 51 seconds. I lay awake my last night here in this cell. I stare up towards the ceiling. I never sleep very good, rarely waking up rested. My first couple months here I use to have nightmares almost every night. And I was the monster I wanted to run from. ***
“Why did you do this to me? Why? I was your friend.” She looks at me with dead eyes and blood spilling out from her throat. Her body is covered in dirt. She has crawled up from the ground where I stand watching her with the shovel still in my hand.
My back pocket holds a steak knife, which is also covered in blood. “I’m sorry!” I yell to her. “I didn’t mean it; I swear I didn’t mean it!” “It’s too late. You took my life from me. I can never get that back!” I start to cry and I fall to the ground. It’s raining and everything is muddy.
She walks over to me, grabs my knife from my pocket and tells me I will know how it feels. I look to my left and there is her family standing at her grave putting a fresh bouquet of flowers down. Her mom, dad, and two little sisters hold each other weeping.
I look back at her and she gives me a devilish smile, raises the knife, and slits my throat. I woke up, screaming at the top of my lungs.
Two of the night guards came running in with the nurse following shortly behind. I thrashed my arms as they grabbed me, trying to hold me still. The nurse grabbed my left arm and injected me with a medicine foreign to me as it flowed through my veins. They kept holding me until I started to feel cloudy and tired. They helped me lay back down and as soon as my head touched the pillow, I was out like a light.
The nightmares have stopped now and I don’t dream anymore. I go to sleep and wake up, and there’s nothing in between.
I didn’t sleep last night. I get up slowly as two guards enter my cell. I look at the clock. 1 hour 2 minutes and 44 seconds. They don’t say anything as they each grab one of my arms, cuff me, and walks me out of my cell.
I tell them to wait and they stop. I turn around and look back at my cell. I’ve slept, cried, hurt and lived in here for over half my life. But this place was never a home. I swish my mouth around and spit at it, the saliva landing just inside the bars. I quietly speak to the room, mouthing my words, “To whoever may live here next, have mercy on their soul.”
We seem to walk for a long time when finally, they usher me into an enclosed room, like the ones in the doctors’ offices. They tell me to wait and close the door. The room is white and barren, pristine with the smell of chemicals.
I glance at the clock. 45 minutes and 11 seconds. My breathing starts to get shallower. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe! I sit down in the chair and put my head down between my legs. In, out, in out. Slowly my breathing returns to normal. I sit there and wait, watching the clock as the minutes go by. 39 minutes and 12 seconds. Right then, a lady comes in.
She sits down in front of me and starts to fill out paper work for what seems like ages, but that’s ok, let time go slow. Right before we leave the room I look back at the clock. 30 minutes and 25 seconds. We walk down to the execution room. I sit down and they strap me in tightly so I can’t move. I killed her. I had to have killed her. I’ve lost the time.
They finish getting everything ready. For the first time I’ve been here I wish I really did kill her because if I did this would be justice but if I didn’t this would just be inhumane and I don’t think I could bear the thought of that. They ask me if I have any last words. I look them in the eyes, “I hope you got this one right.”
Darkness covers my sight and I can feel the cloak as it wraps around my face like a snake about to suffocate its prey. Somewhere in the deepest crevice of my soul I believe that I did not kill her but the part of me that thinks this has gotten crushed down by the weight of 25 years and the stronger part me believes that maybe I did, maybe I could’ve killed her and my mind has suppressed those memories or my psychosis is taking over like so many of the doctors have told me so maybe I did really kill her.
I silently wince as the needle pushes through my veins and it’s fast I can feel myself starting to fade. My breathing is shallow but I don’t feel any pain and somehow that makes me feel lucky, lucky that nowadays people don’t use electric chairs or lynching but rather a fast killing drug that causes no pain and I seem to smile at that and there’s something else that I feel I’m not sure how to describe it but it’s almost like relief, relief from 25 years of imprisonment and hell and I pray for the first time in 25 years that when I take my last breath I will find peace and happiness and I will not be engulfed by the fires in hell but rather rejuvenated from the joys of heaven.
And all of a sudden that tiny crevice inside of me starts to grow stronger and stronger and I feel tears streaming down my face though no one knows but me and God. And no one knows but Him and I that the tears I shed are not from a place of self-pity but from the place in my soul that knows I didn’t kill her.
I think back to earlier when I told myself that I wasn’t even tired. I was lying to myself. Because I am tired, physically no, but emotionally and mentally, yes, I’m very much so tired. And something that I want most right now is to rest. I want to rest. And I smile at that very thought, knowing that I will finally get to. The tears I shed are for her and I exhale for what I know will be the last time.