I spent twelve years in the state penitentiary for crimes imagined by children and believed by adults. For those twelve years, my body became my enemy and my commodity — I let the inmates hurt me so I could live. Besides the common abuses, they also broke my fingers and thumbs and sometimes the little bones in my hands. Once, they shattered a wrist. They’d wait until I healed, then find me again, often working both hands so I couldn’t feed myself. If I fought or resisted, they said they’d cut off my fingers. They pinned my arm between their bodies, and sometimes I wished they had cut off the fingers so we could have been done with it. I’d wait for the shock of pain and tell myself they didn’t hate me so much as hate themselves.