The flashbacks hit him like chewing chain link fence in an arctic gale.
The things he had done to harm people shocked him.
Every day was an amends in some way.
People smiled at him now.
He wrote poetry about those smiles.
He made a pact with himself. When he filled the green notebook, the first thing he bought after prison besides socks, he would read at the community open mic at the library.
No one from his old life would be there.
No one would expect him to be there.
No one expected him to be unincarcerated.
It was a new life, a reformed him.
Does that exist?
Or am I just trying to bury my past for myself?
Three pages away from a full green notebook, he decided to go read.
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