I was in prison from June 2003 to December 2016, thirteen and a half years. These are some excerpts from the journals I kept from that time. One day I may publish everything.

4/17/2007

Last night I had a dream I was singing a nasheed in Arabic: “Oh my God, complete me.”

5/24/2007

Last night I slept so deeply and dreamlessly that when I woke I felt like I had been dead. It was nothingness. And the thought that death might be nothingness is too horrifying to contemplate, too horrifying to be true.

And this afternoon, close to sunset, I watched a tiny, perfect bird eating breadcrumbs. And the notion that he, and life, was the result of a random mass of atoms never seemed so absurd.

These birds keep reminding me…

1/28/2008

I looked in the mirror and for the first time I looked so old.

2/1/2008

New president

Economy collapsing

My food no longer has any taste

2/5/2008 

I say I want to make each day a productive day, better than yesterday. 

Part of that is to let no day go by without devoting some part of it, even half an hour, to telling someone how much I love and appreciate them, especially family.

“Oh Family of David, be grateful…”

7/6/2008

Suffering is a symptom of existence

8/22/2008

Sleeping, afternoon nap (didn’t sleep last night, doing legal work). Rain is pouring, my window’s open, fan’s in the window. It blows raindrops on me. Water sprays on my books, including this one (not too much). I’m drifting in and out of sleep. Lightning strikes right outside my open window. A shattering crack, like the earth splitting. Subhanallah. I can feel it in my bones. Drift back off. I dream I’m in a war, it’s raining, I’m running, dodging rocket fire. Glorious sleep.

8/29/2008

Worst visit I ever had. I broke down and cried in front of the kids–uncontrollable, but I tried to smile–probably made me look crazy, pitiful. My wife has left me.

9/23/2008

I dreamed I was in a building and they were shooting (who?) at the building–full auto, very powerful–the bullets were flying through the air like mosquitos, zip zip–glass was shattering, flying through the air. I was laying on the floor, covering my head, the bullets thick in the air around me, I was amazed I hadn’t been hit, I thought I must have been. I was crawling towards the door saying “la ilaha illallah”

11/12/2008

Just woke up from a dream — 2:15am. I was in some kind of a house. Some people there were starting to panic–part of me was too, but another part dominated, I kind of scoffed, thinking, there’s no danger at all. There was some sort of flood outside beginning to disintegrate the house (the walls were sort of concrete, not drywall) and the walls began to be saturated with water and drip. Fear kept building in people and in the atmosphere and in part of me but I would get a grip and say-it’s nothing. I kept going into this one room and the walls looked worse and worse, waterlogged, dripping, huge cracks forming, sound of thundering water. It’s nothing, I said.

Then the walls fell in huge chunks and the water poured in, then the house was gone and I felt myself in some kind of pure, unreal bliss. I saw a female figure kind of swim or fly upward in the water (but it wasn’t water) and she was just a form, like energy or something, and I felt the same way myself, and I followed her, flying, thinking–see, why were people worried? There was no danger.

Then the blissful atmosphere began changing to water and I began struggling upward, and I realized I was struggling, and I broke through to the surface, aware of two others in the water, someone I didn’t know (the girl?) and Saif. And there were mountains of debris from the flood floating on the churning water, it had swept it away and was carrying it, and I was pushing through it kind of easily, to my relief and surprise, feeling a little bad because I had overtaken the others  and wasn’t really caring about the debris falling on them. (It was mostly huge piles of fans, like in our cells, and other stuff).

Then suddenly dry land and I struggled to the land and said to Saif, watch out, there’s a log, and I started walking on the land and looking around, the town had been pummeled by the flood and there was trash around but not too bad, and I was relieved to be on the ground. Then I heard Saif saying, do you have a rope or something for this log. And I turned around and saw he was not yet on the land, his leg was stuck under the log (it was a piece of railroad tie) so I grabbed the log to pull it up and it tore out of the ground (it was soft and waterlogged) and he stood up. Then we were out (free?) and walking around, looking at the remains of the world.

9/29/2009

I’d like to be on that train

Passing by this old prison

Wondering about the men

Behind these walls

Or maybe not thinking 

About them at all–

Maybe thinking about the new

Town and life that awaits me

Stretched out, I’ve got

The window open, letting in the night

And the whistle of my train

Echoing off the walls of the prison.

2/14/2010

Since the time for fajr is getting earlier I’ve been having trouble waking up on time. So I made dua to wake up on time.

I dreamed I was riding in a car with my mom, and I was reading through a book she had on religion and belief in God–not a book on Islam, but generally–and I was circling chapter titles in pencil that I was suggesting she read. And I told her I wanted to explain religion to her–not, I said, that you don’t know about religion, having spent so many years in a convent, but really why I feel drawn to religion. She said she does too, but she feels closer to a sort of European way of religion. I said yes, me too, but think of the first European Christians, where they took their religion from–Bethlehem was a town of–and I was trying to explain, like Middle Easterners, and I mentioned bedouins.

Suddenly I was in Bethlehem and someone (not my mom) was asking me–what’s a bedouin? And I was explaining, a desert dweller, etc., and kind of involved in this discussion, and around us the color and bustle of the town. We were standing in front of a masjid, as if waiting to go in, and people were kind of crowding up to go in. An attendant at the mosque, I think handling shoes or something, said: Mr. Royer! Do you want to have a nice part of the carpet to sit on? I said, yes! He laughed and kindly said, well, you’d better get in and sit down! I laughed, because I was caught up in my conversation and neglecting something more important, and I was chastened, so I made my way in. The sensation was immediate and real–the colors, mix of people, the smell of old wood and wool from the rugs, the bustle and noise as people made their way to the front of the mosque and to the bathrooms and wudu area, and I made my way to the room to make wudu. Then I woke up and it was 6:00am, time for fajr. Subhanallah.

So I just prayed and it was sweet and light, and now I’m writing this.

3/10/2010

Our white van sails anonymously down the highway through the fall Midwestern night, on the way to Colorado.  Alone in the backseat, I see the familiar warm glow on the horizon; it gets bigger and hotter until we’re swallowed by it. St. Louis welcomes me like an old friend. The city lights are so bright and the looming shapes so imposing that, after years of confinement in tiny plain rooms, I nearly have to look away. We drive over the murky river and through the dizzying maze of overpasses and interchanges that take us down into the blocks of ancient brick warehouses in the belly of the city.

Downtown is suddenly behind us. The familiar exits whiz by as if this were just another of those long-ago nights of riot with my friends. “Hey, there’s my exit,” I tell the driver.  He laughs. But it’s not my exit now, anyway.  My parents don’t live in our old house anymore and my friends have moved away.

My shackled legs have gone to sleep again so I shift them around, trying to find a less uncomfortable position. The rattle of the chains alarms the prison guards in the front of the van; their backs stiffen and they glance at me nervously from the corners of their eyes.  Their paperwork tells them I’m a dangerous terrorist.

The guards are hungry so they get off the highway and pull into a McDonald’s next to my old neighborhood.  They park the van in a dark corner behind the drive-through, next to a teenage couple standing cheek-to-cheek by their car.  I can see them a few yards away but they can’t see me through the tinted windows that separate our worlds.  Me in my mobile prison and them with everything before them. I want to tell them, I’m like you, I’m a normal person.

The plain white government sedan that has been following us pulls up and blocks in our van.  The officers inside pile out dressed in tactical gear, draw assault rifles from the trunk, and take up positions in a perimeter around the van.  Alarmed, the young lovers get in their car and drive away.  My world has invaded theirs. 

3/12/2010

The bus pulls into a loading bay in the supermax prison. The guards lead me out. I sit for hours in a holding cell. They x-ray me to make sure I don’t have weapons in any body cavities. I wear a belly chain and leg irons. The guards, carrying batons, push me in a wheelchair through long, empty, silent halls for what seems like at least a mile. All surfaces are gleaming and spotless. We reach my unit and the guards call on their radio for the doors to open. We go through one set of doors and another and another, deeper and deeper into the bowels of this place. Finally we reach my cell. The doors slam behind me. I turn around and the guards reach through the bars to remove my handcuffs and leg irons. They leave. Silence. I’m home.

3/13/2010 

The inmate in the cell next to me asks me my name. “Ismail” I say. You’re a Muslim? he asks. Yes, I say. He begins screaming “Race traitor! We’re at war with Islam” and rhythmically banging on the wall. He does this for several hours a day for the next two weeks. 

7/12/2010

Had a dream yesterday about Hamza and we were having a real father-son talk about life, growing up, etc…

Just had a dream about my mom, we were arguing and she told me i was her favorite son (well, I’m her only son) and I hugged her and said my only regret was I could never find the words to tell her how much I loved her, and then I said, “You know how much I love you, don’t you?” Then I woke up.

5/9/2011

Dreamed I was in the world and was with Fatima, when she was little. I was buying a car, kind of old and worn but functioning, in a lower class white neighborhood of the same description. In my dream I noted all the details of the homes, kids’ toys in the garages and yards, etc. A lot of trees. It felt great. Looked a little like Valley Park but less depressing–actually not depressing at all. Then it was night, I was lying on the hood of the car looking at the stars, marveling at them, asking God to guide me, strengthen my faith, remove my doubts. It was very emotional, almost tearful. Then for some reason I was carrying Fatima, realized that it would take too long to get where we were going, went back to the car I had bought and we drove. We stopped at some restaurant. I was talking to a girl who worked there, saying I was sad because I would have to leave soon and I would miss my daughter–it was one of those dreams where I was temporarily out of prison but had to go back. I said I was in the military and said I had to go overseas, so she would understand but not be biased on hearing I was going back to prison. 

Then somehow I was at a party for children with Fatima, she had some kind of fancy invitation and clothes and was so happy. I was paying all my attention to her and enjoying being with her and started worrying about Hamza, Aisha, and Hasan, and that I wasn’t paying enough attention to them. Fatima was hugging me and smiling and saying she wished this could last forever, and the love between us was something overwhelming and palpable and I woke up with tears in my eyes.

11/27/2011 

Men are like wild animals, they will turn on you at any minute.

11/29/2011

Fear is contagious.

5/8/12

euphoria/rage/depression/euphoria etc

6/9/2012

Playboy tries to hustle me and when I don’t fall for it he tries to get me killed. He gets busted for making wine in his cell and accuses me of ratting on him, to turn people against me. The fool, the whole floor could smell it. I tell him, by Allah you are a liar, may Allah destroy you.

7/13/2012

Two inmates attack Playboy with knives they made from lamp fixtures in their cell. He’s curled in a ball while they stand over him stabbing him. He gets up and they chase him around the tier. His shirt is solid red and he staggers into the wall leaving long smears of blood. The floor looks like a sheep was slaughtered. Playboy’s friend runs out of the shower completely naked to try and save him. He wrestles with the attackers and takes the old man’s knife and starts stabbing him. He’s naked and covered in the blood of his friend and his friend’s attacker. He looks like some kind of tribesman. 

8/25/2012

We come out of lockdown. Playboy’s friends think I had something to do with the attack. A Texas Syndicate member lives on my tier and they’re aligned with the blacks. Someone warns me that he’s scheming on me. I’m a Muslim and don’t want to be involved in prison race politics. What I want doesn’t matter.

9/4/2012

Disorder makes me nauseous

11/1/2012

Doing pushups on the tier and I see some of Playboy’s blood still caked into the cracks of the concrete.

5/10/2013

You might get the best of me, and you might not, but even if you do, it won’t be worth the damage you’ll take

6/5/2014

Back in general population.