text: **THE START** As I sit here in Dayroom discussing this new project, I start reflecting on how this journey all began and what led me to where I am today. I was born and raised in Los Angeles and come from a very large family. I had many positive people in my life, but negative as well. My mother and father never married, and I'm their oldest son. Although my father had a history with gangs, drugs had more of an influence on his life. Regardless, he was a very hardworking man and always put a roof over our head and food on the table. He never once influenced me to be in a gang or do drugs, actually it's quite the opposite - he tried to steer me away from that lifestyle, but seeing that him and everyone else in my surroundings were involved with those things, it was hard to stay away from it. It was kind of hypocritical of my father to tell me what to do, when he was directly doing them himself. As for my mother, I have very few positive memories of her. Unfortunately, her life was harder and worse than my fathers. She did not have custody of her children, and I stopped living with her when I was about 5 or 6 years old. One of my earliest memories was saving her life when I was 5. I had to use the bathroom and pried the door open to her laying naked in the tub, overdosing on heroin. Fortunately, my aunt was living upstairs and we were able to call the paramedics. She was in a coma for months and when she woke up she had to relearn how to function as an adult - she was never the same after that incident. My mother was in and out of prison for most of her life and turned to prostitution to support her bad drug habit. In 1998, she was murdered in downtown Los Angeles and in 1995 my father also ended up dead behind drugs. So this is the base of what my life has been like for most of my life. There were many obstacles growing up, but I don't blame anyone for the choices that I have made which have led me to where I am at today, and now I sit here in a level 4 maximum security prison in the state of California. I've been incarcerated going on 23 years; serving 80 years to life for a first degree murder. I fought my case in Los Angeles County jail and ended up in Pelican Bay State Prison in 2002 until 2009. I then transferred to Corcoran for 9 months until I got caught up and ended up in the hole. I was validated as an associate to a prison gang, which meant during that time you get put into solitary confinement indefinitely. At the end of 2009 I went from the hole in Corcoran to the SHU in Pelican Bay State Prison where I was in solitary confinement for 7 years. I was finally able to have the indefinite solitary confinement overturned and released to the mainline; general population. From Pelican Bay I went to Salinas Valley State Prison for exactly 367 days, but I ended up getting caught up again and was put in the hole for close to a year before being sent to Kern Valley State Prison in 2017 where I currently stay. During these 23 years I have seen so many changes. Good and bad, as within myself.