Season’s greetings, Mr Editor. I first want to thank you for providing me with a space on your platform over the past year. You have graciously allowed the voices of the incarcerated — articulated through me — to be heard more broadly, beyond these walls. And while the fight to ensure that living conditions within our prisons improve, and that inmates receive the services necessary to equip us for re-entry into society, is far from over, I am encouraged that change is under way.

I also want to express my gratitude to those in our community who read your publication, empathise with our pleas, and lend their voices in support.

With the Christmas season swiftly approaching, I wanted to take a moment to share a holiday story of sorts. It is my hope and prayer that this story will be shared with those who wouldn’t otherwise read this newspaper.

So, to members of the public, if you have a young Black man in your life — whose life choices you are worried about — please read this with him:

’Twas the night before Christmas, and anxieties are high. You’ve grown to dread this time of the year because of the separation from your loved ones. The joy that you once had for the holidays is replaced with longing, regret and frustration. Of all the terrible aspects of incarceration, this is the worst of them all.

While you feel this distance daily, it is no more pronounced than during the Christmas season. At a time that highlights the best of family and our community, it feels as if the life gets sucked right out of this place. This emptiness is a feeling that every prisoner has been acutely aware of as the days creep closer to Christmas (and Boxing Day) — a painful reminder of what we’re missing.

Even if the prison kitchen whips up a Christmas Day meal with turkey and ham, macaroni and cheese, yams and cassava pie, it won’t taste the same. Something is missing — a flavour that no spices can reproduce. Each bite feels hollow; empty calories. Because no matter how much effort is put into a meal here, it can never replicate the taste of home.

You will never be able to wake to that feeling of Christmas morning from behind these walls. The aromas that once filled your kitchen are now but distant memories. The smells of the prison — your reality — are as pungent as ever.

There are no lights, no stockings, no Christmas tree or gifts. Just the same faded and chipped, mould-speckled walls and doors. And there’s probably water leaking from the ceiling somewhere — it’s like a feature of this “house”.

But Christmas is tomorrow and, even though you are in prison, you can look forward to your Christmas visit — where you can show out in your most expensive pair of sneakers. Oh wait, that was two weeks ago; there are no visits from the middle of December until the new year.

I guess you will have to settle for talking to your loved ones on the PIN phone tomorrow. If you’re lucky, you can get the whole family to gather around the phone — it’s $0.25 per min per call. Hearing from your loved ones will lift your spirits. The joy in their voices is like dopamine to your brain. And for a brief moment, you’re at your auntie’s or nana’s waiting for Uncle to cut the turkey so everyone can eat.

But when that expensive phone call ends, you’re teleported back to your drab, cold, damp cell. This isn’t how Christmas is supposed to feel. It’s supposed to be filled with hugs and kisses, laughter, children playing, and the sounds of something getting broken in the house and an aunt shouting about it. But that’s missing, and now you have to do something. Because you can’t let your present circumstances get you down — not on Christmas.

Maybe you’ll read a book or watch ZBM or ZFB on TV — it won’t be possible to sleep the whole day away. Perhaps you can get in a game of cards or dominoes. It should be easy to find two or three other people to play with.

(Now, I’m just going to pause this story for a moment.)

Imagine spending your Christmas playing cards with someone that you once hated — because they were from “the other side” of this 21-square-mile island or because of some past grievance. How did you and this man get from wanting to kill each other — or your associates — to playing cards together? How is it that you’re able to coexist within a few thousand square feet when a whole island wasn’t sufficient? When did you stop seeing an enemy — an “op” — and start to see a brother, a fellow son of the soil?

This place will expose some of the lies that have been told to you — by others and even by yourself. The chief of those lies is that someone else’s life doesn’t matter; that you can play God and decide who lives or dies. Another is that you are prepared for whatever consequences come as a result of your actions. But in here, you will learn that nothing can prepare you to miss 20 to 30 — or more — years of birthdays, Good Fridays, Mother’s Days, “Cunny” Games, Cup Matches and Christmases.

Perhaps one of the cruellest truths you will learn is that many of the people around you — who claim to have your back — will not be as down for you during your incarceration as you might have thought. They won’t even be putting money on your canteen account after a few years. They will come up with excuses for missing scheduled visits. And they won’t even, at the very least, make sure that the grass gets cut at your nana’s house like you used to.

So let me ask you this: wouldn’t it have been worth it to let go of the hate and anger before coming here? Isn’t the joy of the holidays worth keeping your liberty?

Prison will rob you of your best years. Opportunities will disappear from your life for ever with the bang of a judge’s gavel. Your desires and life goals will now be but abstract items dangled in front of your mind’s eye — always being out of reach. Living vicariously through others will become your new way to experience the world; like a cruel virtual-reality game.

The only new stories that you will have to tell are ones about prison. And when those get old, you will recycle stories from a decade or longer ago — before you came here. You will tell them with such excitement and vividness because in those moments, you are transported to a better time in your life’s journey.

This is no reality that I would wish for you. So, I pray that I never meet you here. And I hope that you realise your limitless potential and your ability to overcome even the most difficult of circumstances. You see, diamonds are made under pressure — so don’t give up and don’t take the easy path by taking a life. Do the hard work of healing from your trauma — and the harder work of forgiving.

No one can walk in your shoes. The choices you make are yours and yours alone — you are the master of your fate and the captain of your soul. So please, don’t let someone put an idea in your mind or a weapon in your hand that will have you shouting “Domino!” on Christmas Day in prison for, potentially, the rest of your life.

(All right, let me cut to the end my story. I’m running out of space on Mr Smith’s page.)

The Christmas meal that your fellow inmates cooked up was actually pretty good. You made it through another Christmas — only 20 to 30 more left. Boxing Day is tomorrow and one thing you know for certain is that you will be missing the Gombeys again this year.

The End.

Merry Christmas from the West Pole.

• Behind The Walls is a resident of Westgate Correctional Facility