An unsent letter I wrote to an inmate I once guarded

Started writing letters to the men I used to watch over. Not sending them — that would be wrong, I think. But there's one inmate who's stayed with me for twenty years, and I finally put down on paper what I never could say through the bars: that I admired his patience, and that I'm sorry I only ever gave him silence. The page is folded in my drawer now. It feels heavier than the uniform ever did.