For the last 16 months of my life, this has been the predominant question in the back of my mind. Always lingering there, like the ghost of the girl who got away, “Where the fuck am I?” I try to lose myself in other things, try to distract myself, but no matter what happens, there are always times in the day where I wonder, “Where the fuck am I?” The federal prison camp at Edgefield Correctional Institution is like the minor leagues for what I’m experiencing now. The last 108 days living in the Special Housing Unit have been one hell of a ride. When your life is condensed into an 84-square-foot living area shared with another human being for 24 hours a day, it puts a whole new perspective on life and freedom.

I’ve been contemplating how to adequately write about this experience for a while. Many words come to mind—dehumanizing, cruel, frustrating, even illegal—but words fall short of what my reality is in the SHU. And it’s not all doom and gloom, though there is a lot of that. It can be hysterically entertaining, wild, and definitely educational. You have to take what little good there is with the bad. You have to, because what else is there? While the things we experience here might seem trivial by normal life standards, when you have nothing to at all to serve as a baseline, these experiences in deprivation become everything.

The only way I have to attempt to portray my life here is by writing about it. In a society run by 15-second videos and quick, witty memes, I am left to capture your attention with a shitty pen and scraps of paper. The pen? I have to remove the tip every time I run out of ink and replace it with a full one, not to mention that maybe one out of every ten pens they give us actually works. The paper? Oh, I have to trade food for paper to write on because they haven’t had legal pads available in commissary for over six weeks. I send these letters and stories out in envelopes I’ve traded peanut butter and jelly for. And when they don’t have books of stamps available—an absolute right for all prisoners—I have to trade food to get those, too.

When I personally asked the warden why we don’t have access to stamps, he apologized and told me and others on the range that he would have his personal staff bring us some to get us by. We didn’t see the warden, nor any stamps, for another 13 days. Where the fuck am I that I have to fight for my right to send a letter?

When the riots happened across the country, they “locked us down.” I didn’t think there was much more “locking down” to be done. I mean, we’re already in prison, aren’t we? The scene from Super Troopers where the guys are pulled over on the side of the interstate and they say, “I’m already pulled over; I can’t pull over any farther,” came to mind when the warden sent out a memo informing us of our new “lockdown.” In this memo, he told us that this was not a punishment, that he expected us to use this time to better ourselves. They gave us two envelopes, four pieces of paper, and one book to read a week. The next time the warden came by, I asked him how he expected us to better ourselves with the resources he provided. I suggested that since a majority of us are finished with our SHU sentences, we should at least be able to have books sent to us through the same channels we would in general population. He looked at me and said, “That’s not how they do it here.” He proceeded to tell me that he would talk to the education department about getting us better books. Since that conversation, the book cart we are supposed to get every Wednesday has come exactly twice. There have been no new books added. My conversation with the warden happened six weeks ago. The warden declares that he wants us to “better” ourselves in here, yet he provides us virtually no tools to do so. This is so hypocritical and illogical that it’s practically offensive.

They continue to tell us to be patient with them through this difficult time, but nearly all of us have more than tripled our sanctioned time in the SHU, yet they won’t even consider letting us receive books. The SHU handbook specifically states that we are allowed to have five books, three magazines, a newspaper, a radio, and a watch. Instead, they allow us to retrieve one book from our property when they show it to us to sign that it’s all there, and one book a week from the book cart that you must return the next week. I have read the first, third, fourth, and fifth Game of Thrones books, but I can’t gain access to the books I’ve yet to read. It’s the same story with many other series. While complaining about pens, paper, stamps, envelopes, and books might seem frustratingly trivial to you at home with easy access to these things, you have to realize: these things are all I have in here. That’s it. I’m not asking for a perfectly grilled ribeye, a blunt, and a fucking Lamborghini; I’m asking for stamps, for books. Stamps that we have a right to. Books that we have a right to. Yes, rights, even as prisoners.

As prisoners, we are also supposed to have the right to access the news, but in the SHU we have no access to magazines, newspapers, or the radio. The only news any of the 44 men on this range receive comes in the form of news articles my sister graciously prints out for me and sends nearly every single day. How can you expect to rehabilitate men for reintegration into the real world when you don’t let them have any access to it? Under normal circumstances, all of us would already be in another prison with simple access to all of these things. They want us to be patient about not shipping us to other prisons because of COVID-19, but they refuse to give us access to the basic things that we have the right to. The common response to any request is this attitude: “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

News flash: I’m doing five years in federal prison for the atrocious and unheard of crime of selling marijuana. I have finished serving my punishment of 30 days in the SHU for using a cellphone to update family members of inmates on the status of our institution’s policy on COVID-19. I think it’s fair to say that people sentenced to 30 days in jail for their third drunk driving offense aren’t being kept there 48 days past their sentences. I’m at 78 days past the end of my sentence with no end in sight. My cellmate has been in the SHU for 167 days.

During Obama’s term, he visited a prison in Oklahoma, saw the conditions in the SHU, and immediately acted to limit the BOP’s ability to leave prisoners in the SHU indefinitely. Every 30 days the staff are supposed to notify us why we are still being held here. When we ask for answers, we are told, “There are plans in place,” but each time the plans come due, those so-called plans are postponed and canceled with no contingency in place. It seems to me that the actual plan is to leave us here until either they receive a ton of bad press or until the threat of the novel coronavirus is over.

We have done the time for our crimes many times over. It is time to let us go back to where we were until transportation starts up again, an occurrence that isn’t without precedence. If the administration refuses to consider temporary relocation as the logical answer that it is, then we must at least be afforded the privileges we would have after a transfer to a new facility. Part of my sanction was a loss of six months of phone privileges and commissary. If I was at another institution, under normal conditions, I would be playing sports, eating three hot meals a day, e-mailing my family, visiting with my family, reading books people could send me, watching the news, and ultimately being in a position to better myself for release. Instead, I get a piece of cake for breakfast, a hot meal for lunch, and a bologna sandwich for dinner. If we’re lucky, there will be some peanut butter to trade for writing materials. Where the fuck am I?

The mail here is considered to be sacred. When they had prison orientation at the camp, the person in charge of mail came in and told us how we were to go about sending mail and what the rules are regarding what we can and cannot receive. The guy told us specifically that they had only 24 hours to get us our mail by federal law. To not do so is considered a federal offense. Today is a Friday and not a single person of the 132 men in the SHU received a piece of mail. Earlier this week I received a letter from my sister dated the 10th. The next day I received three from her dated the 7th, 8th, and 11th. All sent from the same mailbox. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we undoubtedly aren’t getting our mail in 24 hours. The BOP is committing federal crimes against federal inmates. I realize that to most people this feels like a trivial complaint. It’s just mail, right? Yeah, it’s just mail. It’s just mail when you know your sister sent you a letter on Monday from your daughter who is turning six-years-old next week, so it should arrive by Friday. So you wait. And you wait. And your daughter turns six, and you still wait. They are supposed to time and date stamp every letter that arrives. I have yet to see a time and date stamp on anything but legal mail.

My lawyer tried to contact the institution to find out what’s going on. They’re supposed to respond to our lawyers’ requests and allow us contact with them. My sister let me know my lawyer was trying to get in touch with me at the end of June. I have asked my case manager and counselor why I have been denied legal access, and they claim to know nothing.

The air conditioning on one whole side of the range doesn’t work. The cell I am currently in stays over 80 degrees at all times with temperatures even higher during the middle of the day. My cellmate and I pour sweat constantly, as I’m sure every man on this side of the range does. When we shower, it only makes the room hotter. We have no way to control the water temperature, no way to take a cool, refreshing shower. That’s a luxury I would trade a month of peanut butter for. When the correctional officer came to take my cellmate for an X-ray, he opened the door and immediately exclaimed, “Damn, it’s like a fucking oven in there!” Yes, it is, and we live in it 24 hours a day.

Sometimes it really feels as if the worst part of being in here is that you can’t actually die from it. Your body gains sustenance from whatever food they give you, even if you have to choke down another bologna sandwich. Your lungs riotously expand to breathe the hot, stale air even when you’re claimed by numbing sleep. Your heart stubbornly pushes the blood through your sluggish body. Yes, you live. Rather, your body lives. But your spirit?

Today I nearly lost myself when the captain came out during our rec time with the warden, assistant warden, and the director of the camp. He yelled at all of us to put our COVID masks on, screaming at us that this virus is serious. If this virus is so serious—and I am in no way saying that it isn’t—then why do all the officers pull their masks down around their necks as they take us in and out of our cells? Why did they all pull their masks up when the higher-ups came around? Why do officers wear “masks” that aren’t approved to limit the spread of coronavirus? Why, when the officers are handing us our trays of food, do they have their masks down under their mouths and noses? If COVID-19 is so serious, then why are non-violent offenders who pose no risk to the public even here in the first place? Why haven’t they told us about the ten cases the prison already has? When my cellmate asked the assistant warden why he was still being punished, her answer was simply, “Because you have been designated.”

That is not an acceptable answer. It’s time for them to stop asking us to be patient and instead do something that makes sense. The only “extra” thing they have given us since I’ve been in the SHU is the ability to buy deodorant and soap from commissary. I am not asking for leniency for a crime I have committed; I am asking to stop being punished far beyond the sentence for my crime.

I’m writing this and trying to get it out there because we’re in a system designed to strip us of our voices, of our humanity. I’m in an environment filled with all kinds of criminals, and even more are here for “checking in.” Checking in is the term used when someone feels like their lives are in danger on the yard. Typically this is because the inmate in question owes someone money or was found out for snitching on someone else. While I am not writing this to condone anyone else’s crimes or for being a rat, I’m also not leaving them out. No one is trying to release a child molester back into your streets—they’ll still be in a high-security prison—but the SHU isn’t meant to be a place where you live. It’s designed to take your voice away completely, to leave you with no hope.

I refuse to go down without a fight, and the only tools I have to fight with are this pen and the paper the ink is on. All I can do is write my story, line by line, and let people decide for themselves if what we’re experiencing here at Edgefield Correctional Institution is right. Or moral. Or just. I’m fully aware that everyone in this world is negatively affected by the decimating nature of COVID-19. I feel terrible grief for my nieces and my daughter missing out on school and all the exploration and adventure that comes with childhood, for people struggling to pay bills, for those with rent or mortgages due with no way to pay, for the jobless, for the hopeless. I have no idea how I would be surviving in this new world, so I’m doing what I can to survive in the world I’m in. The people I’m speaking for are the voiceless, the people society has thrown away. I’m lucky enough to have my sister and a group of friends willing to stand by me and share my story with the world. I pray these words, my weapons, reach someone who can help us. I’m blessed to have made acquaintances with some amazing organizations through my activism for cannabis law and prison reform. I hope even more will look into our circumstances and see the truth.

Today I promised the warden and his crew that I will no longer be silent, that I will get our story out there so that it can be shouted from the rooftops and towers of this crumbling world. Please like, comment, share, and help us make our voices heard. We aren’t thrown away; we are fucking human beings with rights. So where the fuck am I that it seems like I have none?