“Solitary” in The Massachusetts Review
Dear J, I can't eat. I ceaselessly shiver on the towel they call a mattress; I haven't slept in weeks. I've been alone in here for so long. I don't know how much longer I can live like this…
T's two-page letter was written so carefully, each letter formed studiously, the pencil strokes leaving deep indents in the thin, industrial tissue-like paper. The descriptions of my brother’s time in solitary and his suffering pummeled my heart, but still, I devoured each sentence, hungry for insight into his experience, to know this unknown thing. I learned from googling that solitary confinement supposedly consists of prisoners spending twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day alone in a cell smaller than a parking space. In reality, many people are kept in isolation for months or years at a time, even though the United Nations considers solitary confinement torture, if used for more than fifteen days.