Never Let the Monster Inside Take Control
A drawing from inside.
This section publishes creative contributions mostly from currently and formerly incarcerated people. It includes short-stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, and much more.
If you have something creative to submit to us, we would love to read it, or see it, and publish it in About Time – please write to us!

A drawing from inside.
Cold blows the wind tonight, sweetheart, cold are the drops of rain, cold are the four walls of my cell, so cold I shall remain.
These “emotions” that carry me. It’s from these that you see me. Let not what you see, be all I can be. I’m so much more, this isn’t all.
A girl trying to find her soul, an escape with rope and toe up a tree, a knot a swing.
No mail, no bail, just jail. Hail and rain, rain and suffering, silently ingrained.
Shout out to all you maintenance workers, from painting to plumbing, youse know you’re the reasons these places don’t collapse in on us!
Clean me of this damaged life and make it right. And I swear I will do whatever it takes to be a better man. I swear it.

My partner and I are both currently locked up down here in Tasmania. Your newspaper has been a huge hit in both the women's and the men's prisons, so I thought I'd send you something from both of us.

When in jail some don’t want to go home, it’s true. Hard to believe, so I will find out more for you. Are the dudes for real, or a screw loose in the head. They would rather stay in jail, than going home instead.

The voice is beautiful; my lungs fill with a relieved gasp. I expected a prison sentence. A feeling of chest tightening, breath weak, metal and voices. A life of strip searches and beatings.

The woman of my dreams; she isn’t there. The woman of my dreams; she doesn’t care. The woman of my dreams; she isn’t real. The woman of my dreams knows not how I feel.

Behind cement walls and razor wire, I can see a tall tree – swaying in the breeze it reminds me, the day I’ll be free. Then in come the birds from out of that tree, I watch these birds with envy and I wish it was me.

A wee bit of heaven, drifted down from above. A handful of happiness, a heart full of love. The mystery of life, so sacred and sweet, the giver of joy, so deep and complete. Priceless and precious, so loveable, too – the world’s sweetest miracle, baby doll, is you!

Our faces are seen above uniforms of green, we parade in this prison, all shaven clean. "Another day in paradise", we sarcastically wink, "we fake it till we make it", we tell our shrink.

Outside these prison walls exists real life, going daily about their business in haste. The hustle and bustle, too busy to stop, lives synchronised, and no time to waste.


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