Early August doesn’t hit me with outside blows — it turns inward. Melancholy settles in like fog, and self‑punishment becomes a daily ritual I perform without hesitation. I move through these days dissecting every thought, every failure, every imagined future, turning them into weapons and using them on myself with precision. Hope flickers, smothered by exhaustion, loneliness, and the suicidal thoughts that circle the edges of my mind. Bedford finally feels like prison — the place and the people. The walls close in, the unit grows hostile, and the waiting becomes another form of punishment. I am unraveling, haunted by phantasms of my own making. I torment myself mercilessly, inflicting a level of cruelty the system could never match. Survival becomes less about hope and more about endurance — holding on through the long, hot, airless hours until something, anything, shifts.