My Song

I had been in solitary for about 14 consecutive months. The twenty three hours a day spent in my 8 by 10 cell had become normal. The screaming and yelling until all hours of the morning had become normal. The food, the politics, the lashing out on any and everyone, had become normal. I had witnessed what men can bring themselves to do over the last four years. Men that had always been lost and men that thought they had it all figured out. Smart men, dumb men, old men and young men. Some had wives and kids and beautiful families with respectable jobs. Some had come from nothing but despair and poverty. Yet and still, we had all become animals to some extent.

We had all debased ourselves morally.

“For what?” I asked myself. Only recently had I begun to ask these questions. That long time when I spent in solitude demanded self reflection. I began to dig deep. I began to listen to more then just the words of the people around me that I could hear talk to each other through the cracks in our cell doors.

Men I heard speak for years but had never seen. Men that had never grown up, but preached a tainted code of ethics only comprehended by the lost and ignorant. A code of a so called “Warrior”. A man that stood his own ground, a man that demanded respect with brute force, a man that didn’t steal, only robbed. A man that didn’t prey on the weak but one that picked on people his own size. A man that had done what he spoke about unapologetically.

A “real” man, I guess you could say.

The allure of it when I was growing up was strong and played a big part in my coming into the age of a man. You notice I say age. Because even though I was twenty four at the time I was still by no means a man. So I began to listen. I listened to this distorted view of “real”. I listened to their war stories, their boastful chest puffing. And it dawned on me! This is not what men do! Men don’t squander years of their lives in a cage with other “men” telling stories of the good ol’ days, never to be seen again. Men don’t leave their families behind to take care of themselves due to some code of street ethics. Men don’t teach the young men to continue down the same idiotic path they traveled and continue to perpetuate hate and violence. No! Not my definition of a man. A man tells the truth even when its detrimental to his own well being. A man earns money by the sweat of his brow not the barrel of a gun. A man teaches the younger generations the tricks to his trade and the knowledge he has gained in his years of experiencing this thing called life. “The Human Condition”. A man’s love knows no bounds. These “men”, this “man” I had become familiar with.. were not men at all! They were children who’s bodies grew but minds had not followed. I tuned them out. I began to separate myself from the pack. They had said I changed and they were right! I was changing! I was evolving! I was finally seeing! I read day and night and turned off my television. I read everything I could get my hands on. Merton to Nietzsche. Socrates and Aristotle, Epictetus, the Buddha, the red letters of Christ. I read history, theology. I read the great literary writers, Dostoyevsky, twain, Emerson and Therau. I had made my mind up then and there that life was short and Man’s one calling was to perfect himself spiritually, mentally, and physically. I had awoke, and like Leonardo Da Vinci had said. “ I awoke, only to find the rest of the world still asleep”.

Drugs and alcohol had played a major role in me ending up in the Colorado department of correction. I came from a average middle class family. Mom and dad both worked. No drugs or alcohol were in my house while growing up. I always felt things with such a intensity. I was always a sensitive person. When I found drugs and alcohol, I finally found something that numbed these extreme feelings I would have. I was a nervous anxious person and drugs calmed me down. They would take the edge off, soothe out my rough edges. They help me to not feel.

I was the oldest of four siblings. My parents were loving and supported me and my siblings in any positive endeavor we wanted to pursue to the best of there fiscal abilities. What was it that lured me away from what I could have been? I would go way out of my way to get to the rougher neighborhoods were I could get high and hang around so called “real” gangsters. I idolized there sense of freedom. Take what you want no matter the consequences. It was anarchy, it was exhilarating. There was no curfew. I could smoke in the houses of my “friends”. I smoked with the adults as well. I felt grown. So I began to rob people at gun point. I felt powerful with a gun in my hands. I was always a little guy, I still am. But when I clutched a gun I felt I could take on god himself. Rap music, mixed with drugs, alcohol and women was my recipe for disaster. I had to make it “real” I couldn’t be out there frontin. Poison was my diet.

I created an imaginary picture of myself and what I thought life was until one day, June 6th 2007 I was arrested for robbing a confidential informant at gun point at the aurora mall. I was so high on ecstasy and so drunk off of the Steel Reserve 40 oz’s I had been drinking since 8 am that morning that I was laughing

when the Aurora vice swarmed the vehicle I was in. I had a gun on my lap. They could of shot me and justifiably so. I thought it was all fun and games, until the D.A offered me 10-32 years in the CDOC.

But god had a different plan for me, I guess. I plead it down to 8 years but even that didn’t change me. The yard didn’t even change me; it had made me worse in fact.

I was still getting high and getting drunk. Numbing myself to the ignorance around me.

I was doing things I knew deep down wasn’t in my character to impress people I thought I respected. Like The older G’s. Deep down I always knew that wasn’t me, but I tried, I tried so hard to convince myself it was.

My last nineteen months in prison is when the change began to occur, I was sent to solitary due to my inability to follow the basic rules set forth by the facility. I was removed from the daily charades. I could lie to the other convicts, but once removed from the population, I couldn’t lie to myself. I’m Timothy Blake McKenna. I cry when I watch movies or listen to sad songs. Or when I see weak people get preyed upon. I have a napoleon complex and sometimes act very irrational when I feel my pride being tested. I have a highly addictive personality and I talk a lot, and very loud. I feel things I think most people don’t feel or at least with the same intensity. All I ever truly wanted was to be loved and love in return. I got lost somewhere along that road and ended up in there. But it taught me to love myself again; it taught me who I was. It taught me to love others again as well.

In the loneliness of that cell I had finally found my way home, I had finally found me. I cry as I write this because it’s been years since I mentally relived that pain and torment I put myself and my loved ones through. But here I am.

Five years after my release, I’m married, my family can sleep at night knowing their son is safe and all grown up. I’m home. I’ve overdosed more times then I can count. I’ve been shot at, I’ve been so depressed and down I’ve almost shot myself. At times I thought there was no way I could make it, that I had sunk to low to ever see the sun shine again. I buried myself physically mentally and spiritually so deep I felt I could never resurface. But by the grace of a higher power then little ol me, here I stand.

People say a lot of thing say bout me. Most of them true. I have an anger problem. Sometimes I allow myself to fall off of my foundation, I step outside of myself and let other people dictate my feelings and emotions. But there is a big difference now from the old Blake and the new Blake. I can see. I have the clarity to recognize that feelings are just feelings, they come and go, and I don’t have to make a permanent decision in regards to a temporary inkling. I no longer have to lie and appear tough. I stand firmly by what I feel is right and I no longer preach that false “ill die for the ones I love” ideology, why?

Because I do more then that now. I live for them. Any man can die, dying is easy. But can you live?

Can you suffer the slings and arrows of outstanding misfortune as Shakespeare said? Can you get up at 5 every morning and work all day? Can you shake a man’s hand while looking him in the eye confident of the man you’ve grown to become? That’s the test! That’s what makes a man.

Any punk with a pistol can kill. Any man with a half decent mouthpiece can take advantage of a woman for sexual or financial gains. But can you love her? Can you support and help take care of her while pushing her to be all she can be? Can you be loved in return?

These are the questions I ask myself. It’s a daily struggle and none of us are perfect. It’s about progress not perfection! Let’s be the men that god made us to be. Our higher selves. Let us do away with our basest of natures, the animal self. Let us strive to reach the pinnacle in this short time we have here in this world. Let us help each other. Let us learn to love and to be loved.

There is a quote that touches me. “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to their graves with the song still in them” don’t go to your grave with your song in you. The world needs to hear it. Me?

This is my song.