They call me crazy. I just want to write. Yes, it gets me in trouble sometimes, but that goes with the territory.

Here comes another. All day they drop the carcasses of pens down the chute to my cell, devoid of ink, broken tips, beautiful cases snapped in half, trying to break my spirit. I won’t let them. I refuse. I bend the pen shafts into shapes, wonderful letters.

Ages ago, they sent pages ripped from books, but those just fueled me, pushed me onward. All those stories, put to death.

Sometimes, to try to throw me, my captors would kill a keyboard and toss its shattered remains down to me, one letter at a time. Horrifying, but I didn’t break.

For a while, I collected the keys and used them to spell out words. They’ve gotten smart, taken away the keys, oh, those beautiful broken letters. They think I can’t write any more, think they’ve taken away all my tools.

But I’ve already won. They can’t stifle me. I have a rock, and there’s a bare concrete wall just begging to be scribbled on.