Zuko Love, Dead Babies, and Fucking Bipolar Disorder

MUNCY STATE PRISON

February 28th, 2025

Friday

10:54am

Commissary day. Yay for coffee and ecigs. Tomorrow is Kaylee’s 17th death anniversary.

5:49pm

Everyone has Steve Wilkos on their TVs. Some story about a woman who’s here who killed a baby, hid the body, and only got 15 years. 

She’s here, of course.

Of course she’s here.

People are outraged that they got the same amount of time for drug offenses and shit. Everyone’s talking about dead babies today. A few years ago this would have been traumatic for me. Today it’s merely noteworthy.

On the radio:

“I’m at the deep end

Watch as I dive in

I’ll never leave the ground

Crash through the surface

Where they can’t hurt us

We’re far from the shallow now…”

Maybe I finally graduated to the deep end. Never could swim. But I can bury two babies and survive it.

The other day the mental health lady said to me, “After all you’ve been through, prison isn’t going to keep you down. Nothing’s going to keep you down.” 

She teared up when she said it, like she really meant it.

Maybe she’s right.

9:23pm

They switched my detail to the downstairs bathroom and my days off.

Fuck.

Now I’ll never be alone with Zuko. She thinks we should sign a contract and live together on a closed unit, but that seems extreme to me. And I really don’t want to take a shit in front of her.

Fuck.

This just keeps getting worse.

March 1st, 2025

Saturday

Kaylee’s Death Anniversary

7:51am

Zuko and I went to breakfast this morning. She made me a picture of a woman with black hair and blue eyes kneeling in a white dress with yellow butterfly wings.

She’s so sweet.

Book:

Gandhi: An Autobiography–The Story of My Experiments With Truth

P. 19

“And he who would be friends with God must remain alone, or make the whole world his friend.”

March 2nd, 2025

Sunday

11:21am

“Strawberry Wine” is playing on the radio. Makes me miss Kimberly. I wonder how she is.

This book by Gandhi is 500 pages long.

Zuko let me listen to the rest of “Sprout’s Mixed Tape” last night. She told me about a book called “Survivor” whose main character is her great-grandfather who was trapped at sea for nine days. Two other men trapped with him died, but he survived.

Zuko is unbelievably sweet and thoughtful. 

She says she’s going to worry about me cheating on her when I get out of here. I don’t know how I feel about that. I guess if I was in her position, I would feel the same way. She said not to take it personally. Sounds personal to me.

Tomorrow we’ll have been together for a month. She keeps track of these things. She thinks something bad is going to happen tomorrow when the Unit Manager, Mr. Reibsome, comes back. She might be right.

A few days ago, when Ms. Grumpy Crabass was slowly approaching our table, Zuko started to do the “Jaws” music–like, “Duh-Nuh…Duh-Nuh…” faster and faster the closer she got.

It was funny.

Paula, my new cellie (along with Melanie Gibson) says that Zuko has a reputation for “being an asshole.”

Hm. 

March 3rd, 2025

Monday

11:29am

I wrote Zuko:

Sweetheart, 

Happy one monthiversary 🙂. I love you. This has been the happiest month I ever spent incarcerated. Who knew you could be happy in prison? I didn’t. You’re so funny and smart and thoughtful and sweet. I love these things about you. I miss you when we’re apart. You’re very important to me. You make me happy. I want to say all the things lol.

I love how you touch me and I love how you kiss me and I love how it feels to hug you. I love your frumpy face and your “I love you” signal and the way we think the same things are funny. I think about you all of the time. I love how you cook for me and draw pretty pictures and pay attention to the things that are important to me. I love how we plan for our future together and how you believe in me. 

I love you like crazy,

I have to write Tabby and Stryder. Stryder keeps messaging me about being in an open relationship when I get out of here even though I’ve told him several times to date other people and that I’m not his person. And Tabby–well, I haven’t heard from her in a couple of months, and I’m afraid her sister died.

I wrote the judge:

To the Honorable Judge Stephen Minor, 

When I got sentenced to six months in the Women’s Recovery Center for misdemeanor Resisting Arrest and Disorderly Conduct, you seemed to think that because I wasn’t given jail time, the Parole Board wouldn’t give me much or any time in prison.

On the contrary, they gave me one year in Muncy State Prison for “early failure on parole.” I will be here one year in March 2025, when I will see parole again. I will max out June 26, 2025, whether I get paroled or not.

I talked to Walter Stenhach, my attorney, about petitioning the court for less time at PCWRC, seeing that I just spent a year in State Prison, but when I called him to discuss this in December, he said that my sentence is final and that there’s “no such thing” as petitioning the court for a shorter sentence. I don’t know if this is true or not, but the purpose of this letter is to ask for relief in the form of a shorter sentence at the Women’s Center. 

I have now served nearly three years for mental health episodes that I have no control over and have worked mightily to prevent. I am medication compliant, see a therapist weekly on the outside, and see a psychiatrist monthly. I try to avoid the stress and profound depression that seem to precede my psychotic episodes.

I am currently mentally stable and I haven’t seen my three children in a year.

I am humbly requesting less than six months at the Potter County Women’s Recovery Center in light of my one-year parole hit.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

Respectfully Submitted,

Jessica Kenley #PE6201

9:04pm

Zuko cried today.

She wanted to tell me to tell her if this gets too hard and I want out of our relationship. I will tell her. I love her enough to tell her. I’m not into hurting people on purpose. That’s not my style. And she’s certainly had enough pain in her life for a lifetime. I would never want to be one of the people adding to it. She loves really hard. But so do I . But I am in love with her. I keep telling her she’s my silver lining.

Silver is one of her favorite colors.

She says she wants to marry me.

I wonder if that’s true. (It is! –Zuko)

I feel like I gave up on true love a long time ago, so I just settled for sort-of love and sex as a substitute. But Zuko seems to love me the way that I am.

I didn’t think that was possible.

Who knew?

The song keeps running through my head that goes, “We fell in love in a hopeless place…”

Is this possible to sustain?

I don’t know.

But I’m willing to find out.

With my whole heart this time.

March 7th, 2025

Friday

Book: 

“Gandhi: An Autobiography–The Story of My Experiments With Truth”

P. 89

“For one gets the Guru that one deserves. Infinite striving after perfection is one’s right. It is its own reward. The rest is in the hands of God.”

10:07pm

I have a visit with Stryder tomorrow. Zuko isn’t happy about it, of course. I’m not either. He sent me this message the other day about “thank you for encouraging me to date other people, but I’m happy with you.”

Good Lord, as Zuko would say.

She didn’t feel good today.

Her period is coming and the anniversary of her Pap’s death is on Monday.

“He was my guy,” she says.

Grief is hard. I’m glad I have finally seemed to come out the other side of it. Zuko makes it a point to always remember all of the dates that are important to me. Birthdays and death anniversaries. How to spell Jaxon’s name. I meant to show her pictures of my kids today, but then I forgot. We went to the Library today and she checked out two books–one on living with a chronic illness and one specifically on lupus. She seems to want to learn everything about me. I hope the books don’t scare her. Most people with lupus die from it. Zuko just saw me and made an “I love you” sign and blew me a kiss. She’s so sweet. To me. But then so was Motorcycle. Turns out he was a whole asshole in real life. Weirdly trivial things seem to piss Zuko off. I don’t know if that’s a maturity thing or a “my whole life has pretty much sucked” thing. She told me today that her Dad used to beat the shit out of her. Somehow we got onto the subject of child abuse. But she’s been abused her entire life. She says she’s going to love the lupus out of me. 

I wonder if I can love the hate out of her.

In other news, Paula, one of my new cellies, is sleeping sitting up again. She has cancer, and lost a son to suicide. She only sleeps for like four minutes at a time, and so is always tired. Sometimes I wonder if, like psychosis being caused by a broken spirit, if cancer can be caused by too many horrible things happening in your life.

And how do you fix that?

Can you go to a doctor and ask for medication to mend your fractured spirit?

How do you measure how much you can handle in life?

Is there a blood test for that?

Paula was holding the door for someone today and stole an e-cigarette out of her pocket. I’m not sure why she told me that. I hope she doesn’t steal from me. She, of course, knew it was wrong, and said something about karma “getting” her, but she didn’t return it.

We had an AA (or “self-help”) meeting today, and Emily was there talking about karma and how she wants to get revenge on her (ex?) husband by suing him in court. Zuko nodded and said something about “taking accountability,” but it just seemed like it was about vengeance to me. Can you really make somebody take accountability for their actions?? 

Hurt people hurt people, I guess.

I tried to say stuff about forgiveness and how it’s for you and not the person who wronged you, but I don’t know if I made the point very well.

I think forgiveness might be the antidote for hate.

Maybe the doctors can prescribe that, ha ha.

See look–I just cured cancer.

I’m a genius lol.

But what if I’m right?

They’ve linked stress to heart disease and all kinds of things. I understand carcinogens and environmental pollutants and all of that, but why do people exposed to the same exact things not all get the same exact diseases?? There has to be other factors. 

If chronic anger can cause a heart attack, then I think hate and unforgiveness can cause cancer.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Now I’m just ranting.

But for real–my identical twin sister doesn’t have lupus, and we grew up in the same environment.

However–my mother loved her and hated me, which made me hate myself. Genetic predisposition+ self-hate = lupus

Every single woman with lupus that I’ve talked to said that she hated herself around the time she was diagnosed, which is usually around the teenage years.

Nobel Prize, please.

Anyway, Zuko said to me today, “I love you period,” and I replied, that that is a song, and then she suddenly launched into a tirade about how she hates this girl from high school. She was driving a car that Zuko’s friend was riding in, and the car crashed, and Zuko’s friend was thrown from the car and subsequently died. 

That song reminds Zuko of the girl, inexplicably, so she therefore hates that song.

Ugh.

She didn’t really explain that part, but I was forbidden to sing the song.

I wonder how many other hate-triggers she has. I didn’t get to tell her what that song reminded me of, which is this great teacher who taught Special Ed at Fillmore while my mother was pregnant with Cool and teaching at the same school.

During my mother’s maternity leave, this teacher drove my sister and I to school, which was 45 minutes away, and would blast rock music the whole way and smoke cigarettes.

She was also very funny and nice.

I always got a kick out of that song, so she would turn the radio all the way up whenever it came on–”I love you, period…Do you love me question mark…Please, please exclamation point…I wanna hold you in parentheses!”

I thought it was the funniest song.

I wonder how many things I won’t be allowed to talk about because Zuko hates them.

Which brings me to Stryder.

I have to tell him tomorrow that we’re not ever going to be in a relationship again. I just don’t want to, for many reasons. 

But the biggest one is that I don’t trust him.

I mean, that’s why I broke up with Motorcycle.

If prison has taught me anything, it’s that you have a fuck of a lot of time to sit and think. And even if you forgive someone, that doesn’t mean that you have to keep letting them in your life.

He’s done enough damage.

And the bad outweighs the good.

Pretty soon I won’t have anyone sending me money in here.

I called Motorcycle today, and he bitched about his upstairs neighbors for the entire phone call. True to form, he didn’t bother to ask me how I am.

Just bitched and bitched, and then I got off the phone.

Whatever.

As long as he doesn’t throw out all my stuff, I’m fine. 

Who the fuck is going to pick me up from prison if I get rid of Stryder too?

The Women’s Center, I guess.

Paul doesn’t drive long distances. I’m not tired because I drank too much coffee today. Zuko wants me to go to breakfast. I guess I’ll read.

Nope.

Still thinking.
Zuko thinks about (and cares about) Tyson a lot. It must be difficult to be locked in a fishbowl with your ex, but please. They weren’t even really together. They never had sex–they lived on different Units, for Chrissakes.

I mean–how much of a relationship could they have possibly had?

I feel like Zuko and I did more in the way of being intimate in the first two weeks than they did in nine months.

But she brings her up every day.

If not with me, then with other people.

And there was that note she sent her and didn’t tell me about. And I’m cutting people out of my life because I can’t trust them. Tyson sat next to us at lunch today and made a big show of laughing hysterically the whole time.

It bothered Zuko too much.

The note still bothers me.

That was 2/19/25, five days AFTER shower sex and risking going to the Hole for her, because I believed that she wanted to be with me and only me…I wonder if she told Tyson that she wanted to marry her too? Planned a future together?

That note was also AFTER I broke up with Motorcycle.

Because I believed in Zuko.

I believed all that stuff she was saying was true. I want to believe her. But if Cricket hadn’t walked up to us that day, I would have never known about the note. 

Zuko sure wasn’t going to tell me about it.

And then yesterday I overheard Zuko talking to Daisy, who was saying, “Oh, no, I’ve never heard her say anything bad about you…” and I walked away. I can only assume that was about Tyson. She seems to think that Tyson is SO hung up on her and is doing things to fuck with her, but it seems like she’s got that the wrong way around. It boggles my mind that she cares about Tyson at all–the bitch KILLED A CHILD ON PURPOSE.

She is obviously not a good person.

I can’t make it make sense.

Tyson literally has every red flag (and some glaring, flashing, neon signs) for being an abuser WHICH IS THE WHOLE REASON ZUKO’S IN PRISON, and she “dated” her anyway.

It’s no wonder Zuko thinks I’m a “ten.” 

Compared to Tyson, most of humanity is a “ten.”

Alanis Morrisette is on the radio singing:

“You’ve already won me over,

In spite of me,

And don’t be alarmed if I fall,

Head over feet, 

And don’t be surprised if I love you, 

For all that you are, 

I couldn’t help it, 

It’s all your fault…”

Maybe I’m just an idiot who falls in love with assholes. Maybe I’m just overcaffeinated and overtired.

But what if I’m right?

Can you love the hate out of someone?

Can you trust someone who does untrustworthy things?

Maya Angelou said:

“When people show you who they are–believe them.”

Can I fix what I didn’t break?

What would I do if I was being my bravest, truest self?

I would love her through this.

The good outweighs the bad.

“And I don’t want the world

To see me

‘Cuz I don’t think that they’d understand

When everything’s made to be broken

I just want you to know 

Who I am…”

“Oh it’s a trust fall baby

I’m not going without you

You’re not going alone

Cuz you know what you know when you know

It’s a trust fall baby

What if we just fall?”

–Pink

9:06am

I made the mistake of showing Zuko what I wrote. 

She cried.

A lot.

It turns out that I’m the asshole.

And of course this is very public crying in the Common Room with everybody watching. 

I apologized profusely, but it didn’t seem to help. She doesn’t trust me because I do this. Namely dump all of my invalid feelings on her when she’s clearly doing the best she can.

It turns out that I’m unnecessarily vicious with my words when I’m talking to myself.

This is why I’m so quiet in life.

I’ve learned that I’m an asshole if I open my mouth too fast.

She finally just said, “I don’t want to sit here like this anymore,” and got up and left.

I don’t blame her.

I feel terrible that I made her feel terrible. 

I asked her to forgive me, mostly out of desperation, and she nodded, but this is bad. I’m scared I fucked this up too badly to do anything about it.

Fuck my life.

Is this even worth doing?

Of course it’s worth doing.

Love is always worth doing.

But is that what I’m doing?

Loving her?

Because it doesn’t feel that way.

It feels like I’m being hypercritical and projecting all of my bullshit onto her.

Fuck.

I have a visit soon and I have to write her.

I wrote Zuko:

I am extremely sorry that I was hypercritical of you and projected all of my bullshit onto you. I go crazy in my head sometimes. Especially when I can’t sleep. You are clearly doing the best you can. If I’m being completely honest, I love you so much I’m terrified. I’m sabotaging this relationship.

I’m sorry.

I’ll stop.

Please forgive me.

I need you to forgive me.

I’m so sorry.

I’m unnecessarily vicious with my words when I’m talking to myself. This is why I’m so quiet in life. It turns out that I’m an asshole when I open my mouth too fast. I have learned this about myself. I’m so sorry. I want you to be able to trust me. I love you. I believe that you love me. The is a me problem. Please forgive me. I am an imperfect person and I make mistakes.

Big ones.

2pm

This is mania. This is what a Bipolar I manic phase looks like. I don’t sleep. I get mean. I don’t eat or eat very little. Stryder saw me and knew immediately. I’m not myself. I can’t help this. My entire body is shaking. My heart rate is fast and my blood pressure is high. I can feel the panic in my chest. I need to be squeezed. I am going to take a shower.

I hate Bipolar Disorder.

I think Zuko is sleeping.

I don’t know what to do.