Prison Toilet Scars

Like the bacon incident, the toilet incident also happened on my last furlough.

Prison is a brutally honest environment. As I said before, in here we all know who does what and who you truly are, your dirty laundry eventually will get aired. Your reputation is very important to survive and your reputation will travel with you to every prison. Therefore, you must be careful. There are good and bad reputations, and of course you do not want to gain the bad ones, because it is almost impossible to clean-up. Some of the bad reputations are: snitch, liar, thief, doormats, brown noser, nasty dirty b..., etc.

Each human being reacts differently in stressful and special circumstances My reaction to stress or difficult situations is loss of blood. Before my first cycle I would have uncontrolled bleeding trough my nose, after my first cycle I would vaguely bleed and after I delivered my two sons the blood problem become worse. During my trial, the judge suspended the trial twice due to this problem. I would come out like when you open a faucet, sometimes the bleeding would get so bad that I would get dizzy, I was even admitted in the hospital once. Then I was sentenced to this draconian sentence and designated to Tallahassee, a medium-high security facility.

When I arrived at Tallahassee, it was the worst time of my life. Today I look back and I can honestly say that I do not know how I survived. I did not know anything about prison, or how we were suppose to behave. So on one of those hard days, I mean it was a real bad day. I was exhausted, I felt hopeless, sad and desperate. I went to bed crying like a child. I missed my sons, my family , my home, everything. Suddendly around 2:00 am I wake-up knowing that a torrential amount of blood was coming. The toilet/sink was inside my cubicle, and when I got-up from bed, clots of blood was running everywhere. I was so scared and dizzy, I thought that i was going to die. I cleaned the entire cubicle holding myself out of my bunk. I cleaned in the dark with just my towel and some water from the sink. I finished around 5:00 am, and I was feeling so weak that i could not get-up for breaftast. The orderly (inmate) who was a brown noser, saw a very small clot of blood on the floor and she made a huge issue out of that, she asked for bleach, notified all the authorities and inmates and they all treated me like i was a leper. Due to that incident I gained the reputation of being a nasty dirty spanish b..., I've had a hard job of cleaning-up my reputation. Of course I became paranoid, so for the last ten years, everytime that I use the toilet, I would check, recheck and check again that there was nothing spilled around, I would check my cloths, and would flush the toilet 2 or 3 times. I leave the toilet and come back 2 or 3 times to make sure that everything is clean because I am afraid that if any of my fellow prisoners sees that I left something dirty on the toilet (unintentionally) they will call me nasty dirty spanish b... Prisoners do not forget.

As I said before my brother-in-law took us to this nice cuban restaurant in downtown disney called "Bongos" owned by Emilio and Gloria Estefan. In the restaurant i went to the bathroom, on the toilet I was sitting and I looked around for the pull or bottom to flush the toilet and I did not see it. So I said to myself,: "maybe it has a sensor, it will flush when I get-up". So I got-up and it did not flush. I got closer to the door and did not flush, I walked around the toilet to the left, to the right, to the front and it did not flush. I started becoming paranoid and saying to myself: "oh my God I can not leave the toilet like that". For a moment I thought that I was in prison, I forgot that i was at Bongos (my friends it is an ugly and sad feeling). I chose to wait until nobody was around to leave the toilet because I did not want anybody to know that I could not flush the toilet. I was there with my ears to the door waiting for silence, scared like a cat. When it was silence, I decided to get-out, but when I opened the door, I heard another door opening at the end. I got-out and I saw the person and at the same time the toilet flushed, I was so confused, then I realized that it was my dear sister Briglig. what a relief. She looked at my face and said: "Leo, what's wrong?, you look scared to death, are you ok.?, what's happening with you?." This time I could not hide my shame, I feel like I can tell anything we have a very special bond and she is like my daughter. I said to her: "well i was worried about the toilet, it did not flush when I got-up". She replied: "come on Leo you know that toilets now flush by sensor". I said: "I know, but this one did not flush when i got-up instead it flushed when I opened the door". She laughed and said: "you just ned to get-up of that prison". I replied to her: " yes, my princess you are absolutely right, it has been way too long".

Dear friends to tell you the truth, due to my lenthgly years of incarceration I really do not remember whether those sensor toilets flush when you get-up off the toilet or when you open the door to get out. Nevertheless, my time is near for my release, and future knowledge will come in due time....ONE DAY AT A TIME.

I love you all.
Yraida Leonides Guanipa (Leo).
Feel free to share this e-mail or write to me at:
Yraida L. Guanipa # 44865-004
FCC Coleman-Camp
PO Box 1027
Coleman. Florida 33521-1027