Worldwide Friends - First Nation Pen-Pals

A Friend new
Dearest Friend
Don't come to prison

A Friend

A friend is someone special
someone who knows your deepest thoughts
and has always been around when you have needed a shoulder to lean on.
A friend is someone
you can count on,
a person you can trust and believe in.
Someone you can tell your dreams, thoughts and desires
and not worry about being told.
A friend is someone
who's always there when you need someone to talk to.
Someone you can laugh with
and even shed a tear or two.
You are that someone sprecial
that someone I can count on,
that someone who's always there
and you are
what I always call a true friend.

For Toja
by Angel Medrano

Dearest Friend

I would like to capture a rainbow and stick it in a big box so,
that any time you wanted to,
you could reach in and pull out a piece of sunshine.
I would like to build you a mountain that you could call your very own.
A place to find serenity in those times when you feel the need
to be closer to yourself.
I would like to be the one who's there with you when you're lonely
or in troubled or just need someone to hold on to.
I would like to do all this and more to make your life happy.
But sometimes it isn't easy to do the things I would like,
to do or give the things
I would like to give, so... until I learn how to catch a rainbow
and build mountains, let me do for you what I know best...
let me simply be your friend!

Nothing is more precious than the beauty of nature.
But nothing can come close to the beauty I have found in your heart!
Your truly Angel Medrano

Don't come to prison Dear Reader

With the looks of a New Year upon us, I send you greetings.
We were granted 2001 a hopeful time of new energy with its
harmonious spirits for "getting our acts together."
With our families, neighborhood friends, boyfriends and girlfriends,
school, work, to stop messing around with drugs and alcohol
or whatever, and all therein.
This will be a new year for focusing our hearts
on making a better life in 2002.

I share with you this letter from prison.
I have put my spirit and wisdom into this
advise for all who may be tripping or know womeone
who is walking the wrong road to life.
This is something that I am happy to let you all know
out there in the Free World....

I am a Mexican-American-Indian, who has been doing time
for the last ten years.
The reasons for my being in prison are unimportant at this time,
but the fact is, I am here,
and as they say, "For walking down the wrong road life."

My reason for writing this is quite simple.
I want to help those who think it's
"Cool to be a fool."
I want them to realize that being in places such as this
is not some think it to be.
I want people to KNOW what prison is all about.

The following are my true and personal feelings about life in prison...

Prison is a place where you exchange the dignity of your name
for the degradation of a number...
Prison is a place where you live from visit to visit
- if you are lucky enough to have someone come visit you...
Prison is a place where you learn the countings of life:
You count the years; the reasons; months; weeks; days; hours;
minutes; seconds as life passes you by...
Prison is a place where you hope and pray not to die...
Prison is a place where you are lucky if you never
have to kill some fool for whatever the reason...
Prison is a place where therapy and religion are not looked upon
as beneficial in a parole Board Report...
Prison is a place where freedom of the world can bring
tears of remembrance to the meanest of killers...
Prison is a place where the convicts wages don't increase,
but the canteen prices rise to the sky...
Prison is a place where the ingenuity of your creativity
and inventiveness can be raised to the surface,
if your eyes are open...
Prison is a place where you can become mentally, crippled,
because the responsibilities are all taken from you...
Prison is a place where your wealth is determined
by how many boxes of smokes you own...
Prison is a place where you can clearly hear the echos
of family and friends saying -- "We told you S-o-o-o-o-0"

So don't come to prison my brothers and sisters,
for life here has no meaning...
Very truly yours - Angel Medrano