The Decline Of Competent Mental Health In Florida's Prison's Poem by James McLain

My first night in Raiford
was brutal
awakened in the middle
of the night
in his mouth and being
unable to finish
it lasted for hours.
It was the only time I reported
the rape being
severely beaton for self reporting
the act.
Over the next few years
without any treatment or help
this I thought of.
Climbing the fence to be shot
every day like the day before.

Leadership in the field of mental health
naturally declined,
while the inability to attract competent
physicians
in this field went unaddressed.

Homosexuals with full blown A.I.D.S.
went unserviced,
as walking stickman thrived.

Conditions became malignant, therefore,
men became warehoused
and sodimized
over worked inmates thus died.

The best solution
of getting rid
of inmates serving life
was to stick
or be stuck more then
would die.

Being raped over a hundred times
my being dehumanized
isolation, overcrowding, neglect
and mental illness
cell extractions being brutalized
I took an a.i.d.s. test on release
and survived.

I lived in solitary confinement
between being
raped, no one helped.