• Angel
  • Stepping Into the Sunlight
• Sylvia B.
  • Just Another Day
  • Happiness & Joy
• Anonymous
  • The "Falling" Bridge (art)
• Anthony Baez
  
  • Utmost Vehicle Zen
  • Fear
• Carla
  
  • Other Voices
• Daud
  
  • An Open Letter From a Political Prisoner
• Emil
  
  • Maitreya Project Essay
• Juan
  
  • Greetings to the Coleman Sangha
• Amos King
  [Executed February 26th, 2003
  by the sovereign state of Florida]
  • Dear Henri
  • Letter to a Ten Year Old
  • Some Reflections
• Ellis Matthews
  
  • Reflection
  • Unresolved Issues!
  • Message From A Fool
  • Everyone Needs Healing
  • Dead Sea of Dreams
  • Is This Your Situation
• Mitch Medford
  
  • My Story
• Joseph Vivona
  
  • Do as I Say, Not as I Do: A Recipe for Disaster
• Amy N.
  
  • Till Death Do We Part
  • Clouds In Your Coffee

Message From A Fool

By Ellis Matthews

Dropped out of school....Walked away from my most valuable weapon....Didn't look back ....just kept right on stepping...... Having illusions of riches and glory.

Little did I know my life would be told in a very short story.

Uneducated, yet dedicated to a fate already slated. Parole papers pre-dated. Sentence never, got mitigated....Never being rehabilitated.

This dosen't come with a beat. It's definitely not a rhyme.

So pay attention, before I finish your situation, I just may mention. My future, she long ago predicted.

Never feared being convicted.

Looking back, I hate to admit it. She warned me, yet I still did it. Visions of being on top, knowing I'd never stop.

Little did I know I'd help define the term known as the revolving door.

Riches and glory are not the moral of this story. Yet in my time, I had plenty. Memories I still have many. Riches I no longer have any. Glory, that's a part of another sad story.

I'm the fool, so if you miss my point, that's cool.

I'm the author of this story, yet in the telling of it there's no glory.

So here's the rest of the fools story.

Don't take it personal. Don't get offended, when you see that some of your faults this fool has mention. Twenty years in. Twenty more to do. I don't know if I'll make it back out the door. That's why I wrote this message to you. I hope that my brother reads this too. Then my son when he's through.

Now you be sure this doesn't happen to you.

Before you know what it is that you should do.

These words are from the heart of a brother lost in a time struggle.