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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Monsters” Down in the Dirt, v151 (the November 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book the Light in the Sky the Down in the Dirt Sept.-Dec. 2017 collection book		get the 418 page May-August 2017 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Goodbye

Abraham Myers

    For the last three years, I’ve been waiting for it. Today is the day.
    Being in this cell has made me think a lot. I have taken a lot of things for granted in my life. They were simple things, things that you don’t think about when you’re on the outside. Like the sunshine, or the rain, or a touch from somebody that cares. People don’t appreciate what they have. They don’t realize what they get to see every day. I see these bars, and it’s all I am ever going to see.
    I have laid here night after night with nothing more to do than to think and feel guilty. The thing I feel the worst about is my mother. She loved me so much, and she tried, she really did. I had it together for a while, but I just couldn’t hold on to it. It’s hard out there. It’s hard to survive when you have nothing, and nowhere to go. When you have no future. When you know, no matter how hard you try, you will still be nothing. I don’t feel sorry for myself, and I may deserve to die, but I do wish it could have been different.
    There was one person in my life that I thought could pull me out. Her name was Angela. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She filled that void that no one ever could. I met her in a mall in Jacksonville Florida. We had lived in the same town all of our lives, and it took us twenty years to find each other. I wish I would have had more time with her.
    My father. All my life I spent hating a man I never really knew. He left me and my mother when I was eight. I’ll never forget that look in his eyes the last time I saw him. It was the same look that I have now. Regret. I never understood that before. For all these years I have hated him. But now I see. Now I see that sometimes things don’t always happen the way you plan them. As a matter of fact, I believe things hardly ever work out the way you plan them.
    My father didn’t love my mother. He was twenty-two when I was born, and I know he didn’t want me. I believe he loved me, but he just couldn’t take the burden. I don’t blame him anymore, the way I used to. Being in here makes you realize things. When the world comes down on you, and everybody hates you, it hurts. Once you feel the pain of being hated, then it becomes very hard to hate.
    My mother was an angel. She stayed with me. She was like a rock, always encouraging me to do the right thing, and straighten up my life. But I was too angry at the world. I hated my life, and I hated myself. The only time, I think, I have ever seen her cry, was the day I was sentenced to die by electric shock. I looked at her before they took me away, and I saw the despair. I knew that she would gladly take my place if she could. But she can’t.
    This walk I have to walk alone.
    I bet you have always wondered how the criminal mind works. Always wondered what makes those terrible people on death row do what they do. Well I have to tell you, the people here are just like anybody else in the world. They hurt just like everyone else. They love like everyone else. They come from the same God as everyone else. The only difference between most of them, and the rest of the world, is a huge mistake.
    My mistake happened three and a half years ago. Angela and I had been dating for two years. Like I told you before, she was the one. The one who was going to save me. I was sure of it. She made me feel good about myself. No one had ever been able to do that before. She was hurt in her life too, and she had her own problems, but together, I really thought we could take on the world.
    Until the night that it happened.
    We had been fighting over something, I can’t remember now even what it was. Something stupid I’m sure. I have forgotten a lot of my life in this prison. The world I lived in before seems almost like a dream. I guess it has to, because if it didn’t, then you would never be able to stand the fact that you will never get to see it again.
    There was a guy Angela knew at work, he was always flirting with her, and she liked it. I guess he must have filled in the spots that I didn’t. I was never one for being very emotional. Where I grew up you couldn’t afford emotion. Angela wanted that, she wanted that affection, and I guess I just couldn’t give it to her. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her, because I did, I loved her more than anything. I would have given my life for Angela, but I guess she never knew that. I have spent many nights laying in this cell, wishing I could go back and tell her that. Maybe if I had told her, it would have all been different.
    She left that night very angry at me. I was drunk, and I remember saying some things that I shouldn’t have. I told her I didn’t want her talking to that guy at work anymore, and then after she left, I followed her car. When she pulled up to that small trailer, I almost lost my mind. She knocked on the door and he answered.
    I waited in the darkness for a few minutes before I walked up to the house. I wanted to bust through the door and scream, but I knew if I did that I would never know what they were doing in there. So I moved to the window and looked inside. What I saw made me snap. She was on the couch with him, his hand down her pants. His hand was down my Angela’s pants. He was destroying all the sacred things we had said to one another. He was destroying our love. And he knew it. He knew about me and her, but he didn’t care. He didn’t fucking care a bit.
    I walked to the front of the house. I didn’t even know what I was doing, I was just doing it. It was like I was standing outside of myself, watching myself do it. He opened the door, and I asked for Angela. Just seeing him standing there pissed me off, and when he asked me what I wanted her for, I grabbed him by his collar and threw him into the yard. He stood up and swung at me a couple of times, but it was no use. He was no match for a man that had spent the first eight years of his life being beat by his father. A father who blamed his son for his failed life.
    I didn’t ask to be born, dad.
    I beat him bad, and I could have let it go. I could have walked away. I would be a free man today if I had. But I didn’t. I grabbed a tire iron from the back of my car and I beat him to death. I just couldn’t stop myself. It was as if all the pain of twenty years poured out of me. I killed him, and I didn’t feel the least bit sorry. That still haunts me.
    The police showed up soon after. Angela had called 911, when she saw me in the yard beating him. They took me away that night, and that was the last time I ever saw Angela. I don’t blame her for what happened, everybody has problems. The easiest way to see that is to spend a few years in here. And Angela if you ever read this, I want you to know that I still love you, that I have always loved you, and that I’m sorry I couldn’t ever tell you that in person.
    I guess that is all I have to say. I am finishing up my last meal now, and I know it won’t be long before the preacher comes to take me.
    The last three years have been hard, and like I said before, I’m not even sure I don’t deserve to die. I’m not really sure of anything, I never really have been. Have you?
    All I know is that I don’t want to die, and that these men in here with me, they don’t want to die either. They just want somebody to help them. So, if you’re one of those people who sit at home every night watching the news, and glorifying the men who will soon come to take me, I must say I feel sorry for you. I only killed one man, but you’ve killed many. I would suggest you spend a few nights in here with these people. Spend a few nights talking with them, and then decide if they deserve to die. Too afraid? I don’t blame you. Like I said before, everybody has problems.
    I can hear the footsteps in the hall, and the other men are whispering. They’re on their way. I will only be alive for a few more hours, but the rest of the men in here, they’ll be alive for a while longer. Maybe somebody can change all this before it’s their time to go. Maybe my story will make somebody think. Well, they’re here for me now, so I have to stop writing. They’re going to ask me if I have any last words.
    I think I do.
    I’m sorry for what I did, and even more sorry that I can’t change it. I feel sorry for you, because after today you can’t change what you have done. And I feel the most sorry for the men back there, in their cells, waiting. They’re all criminals, and yeah, most of them are guilty. But isn’t everybody?

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