Home Girl

thomas

I was fifteen years old when they locked me up. I was a punk kid, who was running away by twelve and getting into trouble with drugs and stealing so bad that I was not myself anymore, just another dope fiend that thought the world owed me something.
I was wrong.
I was sentenced to manslaughter but tried as an adult. My original term was twelve to fifteen years, but I was released early on my good behavior.
I took to the routine of prison better than most, never cliquing up with a gang, but getting my education and my GED, taking courses in college, even working in the kitchen. I was the model prisoner and the parole board shook my hand when they approved my first shot at release.
I didn't stay in touch with my street friends. From the grapevine most either quit and went straight, or died trying. So many ODs that I can't count, a few passed through the system, and my impression is that I would probably never see those "friends" ever again. I did stay in touch with my mom and one girl wrote me saying we were in the same circles but we didn't become close until we exchanged hundreds of letters over the past ten years. She kept me focused and helped me to keep on the road out of prison, and we were going to finally hook up and hang out once I was settled back home.
I was released to a work furlough program that was slightly less regimented then prison and if I completed that in six months I would still be on parole, but otherwise a free man.
I had not seen the world in ten years, and as a man, I had needs that far outweighed drugs. I was hoping to meet a nice girl, maybe live out life like it was meant to be lived. The whole picket fence scenario. But either way, I was definitely ready to find a girl and sweep her off her feet.

Ex-convicts don't always find nice girls, but I made the promise to myself if I did, she would never regret choosing me.