I was in the county jail on trial for murder. I had just turned eighteen and the reality of my predicament hadn’t yet fully hit me. The possibility that I could be convicted of murder and sentenced to a lifetime in state prison hadn’t even began to settle in my mind as becoming my reality.
Periodically however, I would see this reality in the faces of those close to me. At visiting through the Plexiglas I would see the fear in the eyes of my brother Donnell as if he somehow could see a reality I was unable to grasp in my own reflection. There was something about the subtlety of expressions in that which wasn’t said.
His eyes had the look of someone who had been granted a glimpse into the future but couldn’t bring himself to speak it into existence. At times i could see it with clarity, but looking back I realize that I intentionally buried, or rather distorted a pending reality.