My name is Jonathan. I’m the worst kind of addict there is. I’m addicted to hope. I chase after it looking for just a sliver to get me through the next day. Seeing silver linings where there are none, just to help me cling to whatever this ‘life’ thing is, just to get me through the day. All because for one day I just want to be a real boy, a free one. You see. I’m a s** offender. I had a teenage girlfriend when I was 18 and her grand-daddy didn’t like it.

So now, although I’m out of prison and off probation, I’m still not free. I can’t live in certain places, I have to check in when I go to other states. People spit on me. People call me child molester while they do it. Their only response when you try to explain that you were only 18 and the “victim” was the girl you were dating “you sure got started young, you should still be locked up” Then they look away in disgust. Neighbors who won’t look at you, who walk on the other side of the street. When I walk into a grocery store, I feel people’s eyes on me, and I wonder if they’re judging me too; if they can see this scarlet letter burned into me like some kind of tattoo.

I go about my life always wondering when some crazy person is going to show up on my doorstep to execute me, like I hear about in the news. Wondering if the cops will stop by to accuse me, yet again, of something I didn’t do. If I’ll have to pay through the nose for bad representation and take another plea deal that ends what little hope I have left.

I used to be a pre-nursing student, an eagle scout, a bible study leader. With dreams of helping sick people, and volunteering healthcare to the homeless. But who am I kidding, that was a lifetime ago. It’s been this way for seven and a half years. Wondering why was I put here to suffer like this, to be made so small and feel so worthless. Why I had to be the one to bear this burden. I feel like something out of a Shakespearean play gone wrong. All I want is a normal life.

I want to get married soon. Have a family, a bunch of kids, watch them play football and teach them martial arts. Teach my sons to sew and cook and not just football. Teach my daughters to change the oil and not just barbies dresses. But the way things are today- I’ll never be at a parent teacher conference. I’ll never get to watch them play games, without enduring the scorn and derision of the other parents. Birthday parties will never be at my house, and I won’t be able to attend them without people talking. That is, if my kids even make friends, or if they’ll get picked on because their dad is a “*hocks up loogie* s** offender”

The girl of course, is happily married, with two children that she loves and adores, she’s an aspiring business owner, and well on her way to being happy and successful in life. As I’m left to try to piece together mine, fraught with cruel neighbors and helicopter parents on one side, and the law on the other; just waiting for me to trip up or make a mistake so I can be hauled away. I just want to be able to have a family, and help people without being second guessed. I’d trade everything. I. Own. just for one single day of that.

So if you see her, if you know her, ask her. Ask her to have some mercy, have some pity, on some poor dumb kid that fell in love with her and dated her, some kid whose life and dreams she threw in threw in the garbage. Ask her if she could find it in her heart to let that guy have a wife, have a family, have a life, without fear. Just this once ask her to find some compassion. Just for me? Please?
~J