Human beings are sexual creatures by nature. It's literally written into our DNA. Sexual expression is a remarkably healthy activity, both physically and psychologically, as long as it is not forced, exploitative, or directed toward children. Forced, exploitative, or...
Tenth Birthday Reminder Like the shadow stitched to your foot Like the breath filling your lungs Like a tail to its dog Like the waves to the sea Like starlight dancing on night skies Like life's cosmic energy tossed by the sun Sometimes obvious, sometimes bold...
My name is Eric Burnham, but these days I'm better known as inmate #12729124. I grew up in a low-income, single-mother home. Nobody in my family had ever graduated high school, so any thoughts of college were "what if" dreams. As a young teenager, I arrived at the...
When you finally acknowledge and really accept that you can do and be more than the limitations others have set before you, there are more worlds open to you, with understanding and growth that has no limits than you have imagined, right in front of you. My Reluctant...
Hate medicine.... We watched him dying. Everyone on our wing had their own diagnosis. “Cirrhosis.” “It’s jaundice. Look at how yellow he is.” “How can you tell? He’s hispanic.” “Next time you get close to him, look at his eyes. They are yellow.” “I bet he has liver...
We’re pleased to introduce a new contributor to our blog, Eric Burnham. My name is Eric Shawn Burnham. I was born April 21, 1979 in Las Vegas, Nevada, but I grew up in Oregon and California mostly. I came to prison in 2001, and I’ve been at EOCI ever since. When I...
People hate us. It sounds melodramatic, but it is true nonetheless. We’re hated by each other, by people on the outside, and by people working on the inside. By ‘us,’ I mean incarcerated persons. Offenders, inmates, convicts, prisoners. And there are people who make...
Initially when I began reading this book, I thought it was going to give me all the reasons why I needed to change my thinking (as an inmate), yet offer not much in the way of breaking down how I could do it — thankfully I was wrong! Houses of Healing is a remarkable...
It's not very often I can say that I'm sorry I missed the contemporaneous contributions to humanity by any particular human being. The recent passing of Elie Wiesel has left me feeling that loss. The vivid portrayal of Mr. Wiesel's Second World War atrocities were...
What a book! This indepth, candid memoir depicts a prominent man's epic fall from being a young hot shot politician with a sky's-the-limit career staring him in the face to a convicted felon serving hard time in a federal...