Category: Words By Q

This is a collection of content and insights written by Q, 31-year old amazing man who’s been in prison since fall 2008.

Q: Love and Freedom

Some would think of prison as a physical confinement. That ‘some’ would not be wrong. But to see prison solely as a physical thing is erroneous…

There is somewhat a cliché phrase for anyone who has been imprisoned for a time… “Just being in prison, doesn’t mean you’re not free. And just because you’re free, doesn’t mean you’re not in prison.” It refers to being confined mentally. Many who are in prison are not confined mentally. I believe I am one who is mentally free.

My mind is not bound by time, as I’m always looking to the future… nor is it bound by space – I do not allow the concrete, steel, and occasional BS to invade my thoughts. It was not always like that for me. It is a level of mind I reached within the first five years of my incarceration. I’m not sure exactly what thought came to me and changed my mind, but something altered the way I see the world. Alter is a strong word, but it felt as if I was finally truly myself.

I believe that the spirit of an individual houses one’s faith. When we speak of faith, most commonly one can’t see its true effect if not for confidence. Whatever came to me gave me a great sense of confidence. This confidence was not solely in myself – it gave me confidence in the idea that if I pursued righteousness unwaveringly, that I would be looked after by the universe (God). Ever since that moment of understanding, I’ve prayed only to become more attuned to that sense.

I’ve stayed true to that idea. Unwaveringly? I’m getting there. Everyday, moving towards that image… and as promised, the universe has kept me. It has supplied me with a unmatched divine love in the form of my fiancé, who has been a light and a motive force for me, who believes in me. I really can’t tell the difference between the universe and her. She is literally my everything. I do not believe that our being to together is anything outside of divine intervention. My dreams, my hopes, and my prayers all seem possible through her… I dare not say I understand the universal force and its grand design, but if it is anything like people say it is, then undoubtedly, it answered my prayers by sending an angel…

I ask everyone who believes that God is Love, to remain open and increase in your faith, fore God is real and is always listening… and benevolent… and always answers prayers.

– Q, 2/9/21

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Q: Dawning Sky

Light loves the skin
With an awakening warmth,
Your smile plays on the horizon of my mind,
A dawn of a purple sky…
Your love
never leaves me.

A caged bird sings,
Slumber out of sight,
Love leaves it sleepless
because the love never leaves.

Oh God,
you pour into my soul a sweet nectar –
something belonging to,
but unpossessed.
A nourishing love
Life-giving,
where once a man was dead to the living.
That nectar,
what man sought during dark times…
That nectar…
The elixir of life… the secret to immortality.

God, why do you find me –
a faithless, lowly man, a crook and a thief –
worthy of such a prize?
Worthy of love
that lights the dawning sky.

– Q, 1/29/21

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Q: Bringing Love Into 2021

The start of 2021 is already two days in, and along with the rest of the world, S and I have experienced a lot of strain from the past year.

Unfortunately, we’ve had to experience the difficulties of love in 2020, alongside the already-hard-enough circumstance of my incarceration. Without the aid of face-to-face visit, we’ve had muster up more of that spiritual energy to keep us in a comfortable, constant contact. It’s funny to say we are quite dependent of each other… but in light of all that, we have always placed a lot of focus on the spiritual body of our relationship. It’s interesting to know just how much we can have a healthy and fruitful relationship, even with the serious lack of physical presence. It’s very beautiful and somewhat enlightening.

Being the optimist I am, I looked at this year as a great opportunity to keep increasing the strength of our spiritual foundation, in turn, our foundation overall. That opportunity did not come without its drawbacks. Our bickering increased slightly and the reality of our situation set in more and more over the time. We both had to deal with the worry of one of the other contracting the virus and not being able to be there if it happened… it was a real fear of mine… nevertheless, we’ve found new depths to our ability to work through struggles and find solutions.

I’m actually proud of our resilience and the way we are able to translate a lot of our love in its healing power through voice alone. Do not misconstrue, though – its not all rainbows and sunshine. S told me of a quote she saw on social media. It said something like: “In relationships and marriage, you have to choose love everyday…” and I take that quote as saying that… its a choice, and choices take a little mental effort, and effort entails work. So you have work at it… just like a muscle, working it out strengthens it. So we are working at it, and strengthening our love muscles, lol.

S and I also have come to find that love is creative, and she proved her mastery of that particular principle this holiday season. Normally, the holidays are hard for us, being the season for being with family and loved ones, its easy to get sucked into the fact that we don’t have the advantage of physically being with each other for that special time. However, keeping love in sight is like a lifesaving rope to pull you out of quicksand.

S set a theme for this season – Presence Over Presents. She created a series of letters, sent by mail, that focused on concepts like family, smiles, music, and home, that which we’ve found our relationship to be centered on. These letters had so much love and thought in them, I don’t think I read one without tearing up a bit. They definitely did their job and transported S’s spirit in full force to my side throughout that week and beyond…

My hope for this year is that we continue to grow together at the same light-speed momentum we’ve always had, even though a majority of our being together is physically at a distance for now. I find myself constantly thanking God that S returned to my life. Her love has always been transformative for me and remnant of a teenaged love we shared over a decade ago. No step missed, no spark lost…

I leave you with this… for anyone who has found themselves in a dark place, alone and wanting, I pray you can find a love that will inspire you to live like it matters. I believe God intended for love to be the motivator, and I’m happy I’ve found mine… and I pray you find yours…

Love is the light of a future unbound, one who possesses love possesses the key to life and its unlimited potential…

– Q, written 1/2/21

Feature photos illustrated by Q, 12/16/20

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Q: Our Force

A lot has changed within the year of S and I’s recoupling. Not with us and our interaction – more the world around us, what resides outside the bubble. A pandemic, protests, and all the chaotic conditions that accompany great change…

Yet amongst the all the volatility, S and I have found great solace in our being together, even when miles apart…

With a limited physical aspect in our relationship, S and I focus more on building on the spiritual body of us. Meditation and prayer are a major underpin we share to help strengthen us internally to be able to withstand the great need for touch…

This year has been very trying. S has undergone a lot of added pressures with the changes of her routine and having to working from home. Plus, the halting of visitation had put heavy strain on our relationship… we’ve bickered more than ever, HA! At a time earlier in our relationship, I was actually worried that we wouldn’t bicker and probably wouldn’t know how to handle it when the time came… boy was I wrong! We are both pretty opinionated, but rarely share it with people. But as with most difficulties in communication, our wanting to understand each other is very powerful – we find ourselves overcoming and becoming stronger for it.

June the 14th, was our ten month anniversary and marks a very important day, I believe. It started off with a newly found tradition of anniversary video visits, which was amazing because we haven’t seen each other in quite a while and I think that has taken its toll on us in very specific ways. But I digress. We followed that up with an hour long wholesome conversation…

But the highlight of the day was actually late at night. S and I had spoken to each other about meditations, trying to set our intentions. I meditated on the destiny of our love and all the coincidences that lead up to us sharing this time onto forever we share.

I visualize The Force that moved everything into place for us… I, myself am a believer in God, as the dispenser of cause, destiny, and justice, related that same source that has placed us together is the same source that placed the stars in the sky and throughout existence… I shared that with S and was so happy when she told me she gathered a lot out of that idea… Once again, being the big romantics we are, we found a path to some greater truth and built spiritual strength from examining the happenstance of our love…

Hopefully… knowingly, there is a lot more to come from our great respect and love for each other. We grow higher and closer everyday… I know what they mean when they say God is Love… I’m still praying and living to experience a deeper, fuller, more divine love, and with S by my side, I know its all possible…

-Q, 6/16/20

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Q: Love, is a puzzle.

I was sitting around reading some of Q’s old (JPay) letters we shared when we first reconnected a couple years ago. We were going back and forth about whether or not what we shared back then was love or lust. We went back and forth a bit and he shared something with me that I read now and realize that he has always been TRUE. That his motives and his feelings and his… I don’t know! He was literally sweeping me off my feet and I didn’t even know it.

A Quick Synopsis of Love:
To best describe love, I would use the analogy of a puzzle… at first, the picture is created as a whole, then it is cut into individual pieces with unique shapes that entail exactly where they belong, and what other pieces they belong with in order to complete the entire picture…

“If you love someone, then you got to let them go…” Truly, if you loved someone, then you never really possessed them in the first place. People make the fatal mistake of believing they control everything; and to a degree, they are correct. But love is a force of nature and beyond one’s control. Our shapes were determined by the creator of the puzzle.
You should not question yourself about it: “Am I in love?.”

I used to try and force thoughts out of you, and feelings out. Mostly, I was successful… but I could never eliminate you from my heart, and therefore my mind… I figured we belong. That’s without question. To me, that force of nature is not something to fight against, but something to fight for…

– QMP, 5/17/2018

I just… my heart. Everything he said, is exactly what we have now. It’s really magical.

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Q: NOT Home For the Holidays (Redux)

Prison is not the ideal place for spending the holiday season. Disgruntled inmates treat the holidays with either contempt or disregard. For the last 12 years of my incarceration, I opted for the latter. However, I feel the next few though will be different… now that I have S….

We’d been talking for only a few months. Had some face-to-face time, and solidified a higher level in our relationship. Deciding to carry on a relationship given the condition is a monumental choice; and backed by the pressures of the holiday season to “be together…” let’s just say our first holiday season couldn’t have been foreseen.

S loves to travel… which for a slightly over-protective individual like myself, being unable to be “there” for her, is very troubling… but life persists…

Thanksgiving, S travelled to her mother’s house: a nice driving distance away from home. We try our best to stay connected via phone, especially when she’s traveling. Even though it doesn’t necessarily change the way we communicate for the majority, its like I can feel when she’s not home… I get the same deep sinking feeling…

Even when I know S made it to her destination, the feeling remains. The holidays is about family… and to have her around hers, yet splitting the difference on the phone with me, seems wrong. So I try to avoid it… What seems to be a vacation and a time for embracing to everyone else, is more of a time for restriction and limitation for S and I. Which is okay, because it’s real.

Sometimes, I fear that our relationship won’t be as strong because it’ll lack “real world experience.” Like its staged in a fantastic play, where negatives are often hidden in an array of flowery words unaided by presence. But when those moments arise where you can feel strain, you can’t deny that you are being tried. Strangely, that brings me a sense of relief…

Of course I can’t wait to “be with” S for the holidays. As I have told her multiple times, she IS my family. The visions of us cooking, sharing, loving, and thoroughly enjoying the season are hard, but motivating. A few more holiday seasons dot our path to one day being free together, bringing in the holidays…

Until then though, I guess there is something special to learn of our love and the holidays. We just have to remain open and receptive to the wisdom the times and the trials have to offer us in our life now, and in our future…

–Q, written 1/5/20
(Read the S version here)

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Q: When You Give Your Heart

When you give someone else your heart, they literally become your life…

…All my joy resides in a smile of a single soul.
Her laughter brings heaven to ear…
Behind her lively expressions, lay the keys to life.
My heart beats to the batter of her eyes.
My soul stirs at the rhythm of her breath.
She is my life… and without her I cannot live…

Her eyes hold the world.
Her touch holds the warmth of the sun.
Her voice chimes and darkness is eradicated.
Why must my heart be hers? Does but a fool bind his soul to another?
Who am I, but a fool?

To breathe you is my way to wisdom.
To hold you is my journey to understanding.
I seek you… through all the numerous things.
Through the golds, the jewels, and all matters of worldly powers –
I seek nothing but my Love.
And to me, there is nothing but her…

The flawlessness of a diamond only exposes its sterility.
The purity of a child only exposes its inexperience.
The perfect woman has the brilliance of a diamond, but the means of growth.
She has the purity of a child, but the wisdom to discern truth…

Every piece of you is my bread and breath… you, S, are my life.

– Q, written 12/8/19

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Q: Character

All people seek JOY.

One is motivated into action by their search for happiness. All of their actions are committed solely to fill that desire for joy.

Whether its the temporary escape from the sufferings of a cruel reality, an outlet which allows one to express or impress, one’s self upon said reality; or an act which allows one to better define one’s self, and better understand life. ALL actions root from that desire. Without desire, freewill has no direction.

Overall, one seeks joy. Mere men find evil in their joy. But evils aren’t in the search for it, but in its finding… it is not the want of joy, but what BRINGS joy that determines good and evil, righteous and wrong.

If man desires good, and selflessness brings one joy, then one is a good and righteous one. But if one desires wrong-doing and enjoys evils, then one is an evil and unrighteous one…

-Q, written 11/24/19

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