ADA COUNTY JUVENILE DETENTION CENTER

Teaching-Writer Daniel Stewart

Justus It was kindergarten or irst grade we were reading a book about how my people were slaves Just looking at the pictures I could smell blood, sweat, and tears white folks treated brown folks diferently for reasons I didn’t understand they made us work all day and gave us a shed for a home It’s almost like I could hear and feel the leather lashing and tearing lesh and bone They said we dirty because we have a dark tone At that moment I realized white people are wrong

Charles People who walk around with their ingers interlaced tend to make me nervous, like the tall woman with high cheekbones does as she stands behind me, insisting that I pull the stitching out of the black and gray sweater with the looming hook, my tears absorbing in the wool as it falls apart beneath my ingers. What an example I am setting for the younger ones who dream to be things they can’t say out loud without consequences, the tall woman’s wrinkles deepening as she smiles, because she doesn’t want things to change.

Azzera The road is long it is hot and it is only 10 I leave and I see a cougar and I freeze not wanting to get attacked I feel the ground underneath my feet I smell trees all around me I can taste the rivers I can hear the birds everywhere

[HE’S SCARED]

Azzera He’s scared he might hurt her his body’s always warm because he’s a werewolf

He loves the feeling a dirt under him the smell of nature the heat of the sun

Azzera Heartbreak is when someone that you love hurts you really bad bad enough to make you cry, want to be alone and not talk

People try to help it’s too hard to let go of someone you love

Micah I am in darkness if that is what you call it in waves of sorrow and regret, blinding me, deafening me, bringing things to view I’d rather not see.

We treat the dark with so much malice, we forget the wickedness of the light, its abundance of self-righteousness, its headachy luorescence.

“You can see in the light” folks always say, “All the evil the dark conceals.”

“Ignorance is bliss,” they say, though it’s considered trashy to be blissful.

The light is the simple presence of the sun, the darkness merely absence of. What occupies the space of either one’s existence

does not change regardless of which atmosphere it occupies. “I once knew darkness,” I tell people, “it consumed my every vision.”

Robe First time I got released I realized all the things I took for granted The sunset the trees the fresh air I had to tell my girl all about it She opened her eyes while mine were already closing lost sight of what I found and now I’m back to where I started

[I GOT LOTS OF TIME TO THINK]

Robe I got lots of time to think in my cell I guess my mom was right I’m not ever gone change I guess I live for this life it been my ith time back and I don’t really care as much as I should at least that’s what my ma says

Justus Going to school and SAS everyday Clowning with all my pod mates it’s really sucky in here right now before this hit it used to be okay no quarantine pod and no masks no split groups and dumber rules we could share basketballs and play chess and foos The virus got me in my room singin the blues All the people coughin sound like a tune this virus blew up everywhere not talkin a balloon mask and gloves but it’s not winter always using hand sanitizer for all the cases I know there’s a big binder Now we can’t eat out our rooms when the outbreak happens for two weeks all 24 hours we were in our rooms no free time no school

Kohrar My head leaning against side of my seat’s window the vibrations rattling in my head all is quiet the kids all dropped of I was the last kid let I hear the squeak of metal against metal as everything stops the double doors opened wide revealing the late aternoon sun that threatens to blind me I walk across the street everything looks normal as normal can be I go up to the wide door there I stood hesitating time seemed to slow I turn the knob of the wide door I look inside I was scared the eerie feeling inally caught up with nothing was normal everything was wrong for there was a man a scary man with a bottle clenched ist aimed at me inally the tears fell

Cody Puddles in the rain Don’t do drugs it ires the brain

Journey by train caught eating bugs poison causes pain built by a crane kicking ugly pugs old man no cane

movies with Mark Twain Dead in a rug Trapped in Spain bound by a chain eyes in jugs bone made bane

that’s not main blood covered eggs not in my lane killed in vain

Marcus It’s winding it’s all about timing I can hear the maze whining Here is the minotaur I can hear it at the maze’s core I’m trapped without a satyr

it’s dark without the ark it’s time to turn of the beast because you go upstairs and ight that beast and lose your way and ind your peace but dust we came from and to dust we shall return

Den It’s like being stabbed in the back with the dull blade you know you’re dying ever so slowly but there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It’s like trying to piece together your shattered heart. But you can’t seem to start for fear of it rebreaking. why are you wallowing in your stinking self-pity? Now that’s just silly.

Why not plug that thorn from your side and rise for there’s no shame in being bested but honor in the art of rising.

Anthony My head hurts from regret pounding in my skull. My chest cries from all the pain that lingers in my heart My legs are sore because I keep running from all my problems

Michael I’m sorry for everything the pain I have caused. I’ve done so many drugs, and broke some laws.

I want you to know I feel so bad. I have hurt you much. I’ve made you very sad.

Words can’t express how awful I feel. My heart hurts so much it feels like it will peel. Please forgive me Just one more time. If you can’t do so I’ll never feel alright. 1234 5 6-7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15