From the Hole: A Price I Paid for the Life I Lived

- by Ryan

I’m writing this from the hole. Again.

Four Mexicans jumped me last week. Broad daylight. Caught on camera. Most of my personal stuff? Gone. Jacked. And what’s SSU doing about it? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Because when it’s gang-related, the system doesn't want the smoke unless it lands on their front step.

Let me be real—this ain’t a sympathy post. I don’t need anyone feeling sorry for me. This is just my reality, and maybe, just maybe, someone out there will hear this and reroute their life before it’s too late.

Right now, I’m being shipped off to a maximum-security yard—again.
I’m 26 years old. Days away from my 27th birthday. And this will be my second time walking through those gates.

My first time? I was 17. Just a kid. They sent me to max back then, too—like they were prepping me for a life I hadn’t even signed up for yet. Fast-forward nearly a decade, and here I am. Older, maybe wiser, but somehow right back where I started.

Why?

Because SSU decided I was the head of a gang.
Inside these walls.
Despite me never claiming that. Despite me telling them otherwise. Despite me signing paperwork that flat-out states the opposite.

But in here? My words don’t mean shit.
You don’t own your story. You don’t control your truth.
The suits do.

THEY run this place. THEY make the rules. THEY write the narrative they want the system to see.

It’s not about what you do.
It’s not about how good you’ve been, how many write-ups you avoided, or how many times you tried to earn your way to something better.
None of that matters when THEY decide who you are.

And they don’t decide based on facts. They decide based on convenience, control, and cover-your-ass politics.

If labeling me a shot-caller makes their job easier, if painting me as a leader of something I never claimed helps them keep the real problem buried, then that's what they’re gonna do. Simple as that.

This isn’t justice. This isn’t rehabilitation. This isn’t correction.
This is containment, plain and simple.
And if you don’t play by their game—even if you walk the straight line—they’ll rewrite the rulebook just to remind you: You’re not in charge. We are.

So yeah, I’m headed back to max.
Not because I did something wrong.
But because I stopped playing the game.

Because I spoke up.
Because I asked for protection instead of retaliation.
Because I’m trying to change in a place that doesn’t reward redemption—it punishes it.

Let me rewind a little.

This life started long before the gates slammed shut. I was just a kid—a scared, broken boy with a needle in his arm at 13, thanks to my own father. That trauma wrote the intro to my story, but I’m man enough to admit now: the chapters after that? They were mine.

I chose the streets. I chose the drugs. I chose the hustle and the pain and the pride. And eventually, I chose silence. I didn’t speak out when I should’ve. I didn’t ask for help when I needed it. I wore my scars like armor, not knowing they were actually chains.

But I’m choosing something else now.

Even in this cell, even after being jumped, robbed, blamed, and labeled—I know who I am. And it ain’t what they say. I’m a man in repair. A husband. A fighter for something real this time. Her name is DeAnna, and she’s my home, my anchor, and the reason I still believe I can become more than what this place has tried to make me.

I’m done pretending this life didn’t leave marks. It did. But scars ain’t shame—they’re survival stories. And I’ve survived damn near everything they’ve thrown at me.

So if you’re reading this, and you're out there still straddling the line—thinking you can dabble in this life and come out clean—don’t be stupid. There is no dabble. There’s only in... and deeper in. Until one day you’re in a 6x9, writing blog posts from the hole, hoping someone hears the warning shot in your voice.

You don’t want this life. You don’t want to be stripped down to your drawers in a concrete box, wondering what it would’ve felt like to be free before the prison walls became your reality.

I can’t undo my past. But I sure as hell can own it. And I can use it.

I’m not done yet. Not even close.

I’m still breathing. I’m still healing. And I’m still reaching—because if one soul out there reads this and says, “Damn… I don’t want that to be me,” then maybe this pain served a purpose.

Until then, I’ll keep writing from the darkness. Because even in the hole, I still believe I was meant to shine.

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#BehindBarsUnfiltered #MaxSecurityTruths #PrisonPolitics #RedemptionInProgress #TheyDontWantYouToChange #ThisIsNotRehabilitation