This piece was re-posted, with permission, from PrisonWriters.com. The author, Lyle C. May, is on Death Row in North Carolina.
In early childhood, writing was this scrawling the symbols of English language with little understanding of their purpose. Large, crooked letters staggered like drunks across the page, jockeying for position and uniformity. My letter R was often backward, the vowels never really touched the bottom line and I couldn’t quite get the hang of the lower case k. Their meaning was a vague thing in my mind. I knew the alphabet made words used in speech and books, but that was all. The power of language, a tiny part of a vast universe, was beyond my experience and unimaginable.
My adolescence was marked by an inability to express my thoughts and emotions. I floundered with how to speak my mind and these unsaid things turned into hungry rats gnawing on my nerves. Communicating as a shy teenager is hard enough, but instead of overcoming my social anxieties and reaching out to those who could help me, I chose less idealistic ways — unhealthy and delinquent ways.
Writing about the difficulties plaguing my life never occurred to me. In my mind there was too much garbage crowding out common sense and good ideas.
My first real understanding of writing as a way of communicating arrived without fanfare. I was locked up in the Maine youth center and had no access to a phone. The only way to reach the outside world was by letter.
Not until my imprisonment on death row at the age of 21 did I begin to fully realize how important writing can be. Initially my letters to friends and family were unclear and fell short of what I wanted to say. How do you explain the situation like facing execution? It took time, a lot of practice, and this overwhelming need to be understood before my writing could evolve enough to help others see from my eyes.
About eight years into my incarceration I was granted the opportunity to enroll in some college courses. Though my education ended with a GED attained when I was 17, I was more than ready to take up the challenge of a higher education. Among the first few things to open my mind was that everything I read had to be conveyed in the clearest possible manner. Demonstrating this in writing went hand in hand with comprehension. Maybe, if I paid more attention in school and didn’t drop out my sophomore year, comprehensive reading and writing wouldn’t have seemed like some new and fabulous skill that swelled my chest with its potential.
It helps that since coming to prison I have fallen in love with reading. I began reading to take my mind away from the things beyond my control. This in turn revealed to me the power of writing to influence minds. Not exactly new, groundbreaking stuff, but to me this was an epiphany. The writing and psychology courses showed me that reading requires reflection and analysis just like our lives do. Understanding the nuances of the English language and value of being proficient with it has greatly improved how I write and think. Writing makes life possible in any circumstance.
In the years since my incarceration I found that writing is a tool more useful than any other, one that’s always existed in my life. Since learning how to use it, writing has become a crucial element of my survival in prison because it’s the only way I can prove my continued existence to the rest of the world. Edward Bulwer Lytton may have said “the pen is mightier than the sword,” but for me it has become the skeleton key for every locked door barring my way. I seek now to find the door it has yet to open, appreciating the power of writing throughout my journey.