On this episode of Our American Stories, every Sunday, Our American Stories host Lee Habeeb speaks with Mitchel "Big Mitch" Rutledge, who has spent more than forty years serving a life sentence in Alabama. Each call traces the shape of faith, regret, and forgiveness inside a place built for punishment.

This time, Mitch revisits the uncertain two weeks between his sentencing hearing and the judge's final decision. That stretch of time pulled a lot into focus, and eventually led him to write "A World Within a World," a poem about growing up locked away from the life most people take for granted. He also talks about death row: the silence, the rituals, and the men who disappeared one by one. The episode closes with "Disdain," a piece about resisting the slow pull toward bitterness when hope feels out of reach.

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