In America , 2.7 children currently have parents behind bars.
Nightmares.
I’ve been very fortunate not to have many of these. My father has sheltered me from the pain that he has been going thru over the past 26 years. You know the gore and heinous police brutality that we see in movies? We’ve all heard of it. But here I am, a 27 year old woman still having nightmares. I wish you all could be here as it’s 4:25am a minute from the day I was born April 26th and I’m up writing a blog because this literally just happened to me. As a new mom you wake up often in the middle of the night to care for your randomly screaming baby. As a twin mom you wake up 2x more then average so as you all can see my sleep has been deprived for 10 months. But last night I went to sleep just like any other night. Feeding my family, bathing my twins and going to bed.
Whenever I have nightmares, I cry. Because the vivid dream of my possible reality hurts me like no other. Sometimes I have dreams about my kids, but tonight I share this with you because I had a dream about being a Prisoners Daughter.....
I’m going to just type everything before I forget. So it was a weird visitation, you know it’s a dream when things happen that are so unrealistic. But when your dreaming your mind can’t decipher reality from fiction. My grandmother was with me. I saw her in the corner talking to a cop. Not sure why . But I figured she was trying to talk him into allowing her to visit. I saw some sort of needle next to her and she shouted at me “ my insulin is low”, my grandmother is in real life a diabetic so I guess my mind made up a scenario for her to be unable to visit with us. So I’m in this line alone now , maybe 6 or 7 families. And I see the prisoners in another line. It was like we were prisoners with them. The cops had us taping microphones to our foreheads. People were angry about the microphones, but just to get my visit, I did what I normally did in real life, I kept my mouth shut. This whole procedure has never happened. But I guess with the craziness my brain was building it had to go in the story. Well the families were walking in line down to a couple of stairs to sit and converse with their loved ones. But before the prisoners made it to us a random fight broke out. And the cops and prisoners all started fighting. My father has always been a hero in my heart so he was fighting the cops to help his friends. But just like any normal fight with cops, your not going to win as a prisoner. And sometimes things can’t go a little to far, with there beating sticks. The men fought for maybe 2 mins and then were walked down to be with the families. My fathers face looked like the face of a man beaten by his slave owners. It was so scary! There were other prisoners that were hurt too. And as a Prisoners daughter with no authority I screamed and cried. And that’s it! That’s how I woke up from this nightmare. Mind you I’ve never been in this situation , but fear still gets to me at night. I’ve heard my father talking to his friends, I’ve seen the officers being more rude then they needed to be. Showing prisoners that they are in authority, regardless if they are wrong or right. And so now I just cry. There’s not much I can do because once your sentenced to a crime people think that your supposed to be treated like an animal. That you deserve to be beat, chastised, threatened. But what saddens me the most is that same brutal reality is true even if your innocent. 😞
Now I’m going to go drink my comfort drink; apple juice. And try to go back to sleep before my babies wake up. But I couldn’t have another nightmare and not share it with you all. Share my pain. Share my passion. Not only am I ashamed of how we treat our people. But I’m confused how anyone can have all this done to them after being cleared of a crime. Maybe one day we will all realize that “prisoners are people too “.
I’ve been very fortunate not to have many of these. My father has sheltered me from the pain that he has been going thru over the past 26 years. You know the gore and heinous police brutality that we see in movies? We’ve all heard of it. But here I am, a 27 year old woman still having nightmares. I wish you all could be here as it’s 4:25am a minute from the day I was born April 26th and I’m up writing a blog because this literally just happened to me. As a new mom you wake up often in the middle of the night to care for your randomly screaming baby. As a twin mom you wake up 2x more then average so as you all can see my sleep has been deprived for 10 months. But last night I went to sleep just like any other night. Feeding my family, bathing my twins and going to bed.
Whenever I have nightmares, I cry. Because the vivid dream of my possible reality hurts me like no other. Sometimes I have dreams about my kids, but tonight I share this with you because I had a dream about being a Prisoners Daughter.....
I’m going to just type everything before I forget. So it was a weird visitation, you know it’s a dream when things happen that are so unrealistic. But when your dreaming your mind can’t decipher reality from fiction. My grandmother was with me. I saw her in the corner talking to a cop. Not sure why . But I figured she was trying to talk him into allowing her to visit. I saw some sort of needle next to her and she shouted at me “ my insulin is low”, my grandmother is in real life a diabetic so I guess my mind made up a scenario for her to be unable to visit with us. So I’m in this line alone now , maybe 6 or 7 families. And I see the prisoners in another line. It was like we were prisoners with them. The cops had us taping microphones to our foreheads. People were angry about the microphones, but just to get my visit, I did what I normally did in real life, I kept my mouth shut. This whole procedure has never happened. But I guess with the craziness my brain was building it had to go in the story. Well the families were walking in line down to a couple of stairs to sit and converse with their loved ones. But before the prisoners made it to us a random fight broke out. And the cops and prisoners all started fighting. My father has always been a hero in my heart so he was fighting the cops to help his friends. But just like any normal fight with cops, your not going to win as a prisoner. And sometimes things can’t go a little to far, with there beating sticks. The men fought for maybe 2 mins and then were walked down to be with the families. My fathers face looked like the face of a man beaten by his slave owners. It was so scary! There were other prisoners that were hurt too. And as a Prisoners daughter with no authority I screamed and cried. And that’s it! That’s how I woke up from this nightmare. Mind you I’ve never been in this situation , but fear still gets to me at night. I’ve heard my father talking to his friends, I’ve seen the officers being more rude then they needed to be. Showing prisoners that they are in authority, regardless if they are wrong or right. And so now I just cry. There’s not much I can do because once your sentenced to a crime people think that your supposed to be treated like an animal. That you deserve to be beat, chastised, threatened. But what saddens me the most is that same brutal reality is true even if your innocent. 😞
Now I’m going to go drink my comfort drink; apple juice. And try to go back to sleep before my babies wake up. But I couldn’t have another nightmare and not share it with you all. Share my pain. Share my passion. Not only am I ashamed of how we treat our people. But I’m confused how anyone can have all this done to them after being cleared of a crime. Maybe one day we will all realize that “prisoners are people too “.