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1-17-74, Thursday

Barb,

I tell you true that cold is just a word until you spend a few winters in here. The floors are stone, the walls and ceiling concrete. It’s 6:20 am now and I’ve just come back up to my bed from the downstairs room. Yoga these mornings is really a test of strength for my new-found power of will. I mean at quarter to five when my headclock goes off there isn’t a soul stirring in here. Everyone’s wrapped beneath all their blankets, full-clothed with sweaters and hats woolen pulled down over their ears. Fetal position is an absolute necessity. If you allow your extremities to stray too far out from the central heat of your groin, they numb up in a matter of minutes.

4:45 I stick my head out from my woolen cocoon and no shit my breath fogs the air. The windows have a thin layer of ice on this side of them—frozen fart condensation and foul stale stench of unwashed bodies.

It’s been snowing light flurries for a week now and the overcast hasn’t lifted since Dec. 30th. First thing I think of when I wake is how nice it would be to go back to snuggly sleep with my hand holding my stiff cock poking up through my longjohns. My body is insistent that its perception of the situation is totally correct and that there isn’t the slightest doubt about the correct course of action. I mean, I’m full and swollen throbbing in my hand and the covers are warm and the air is cold and I haven’t come in about a week and a half since my last wet dream because I’ve got this experiment going with masturbation abstention and God, but wouldn’t it feel so fine to have you deep in my arms wrapped around me your woman love while we lick each other’s mind…

Yeah, yeah. But you’re far away and this is where I happen to be. And I’ve learned to observe and judge the perceptions and demands of my body. Sometimes I even direct them with my other brains. I know that it’s necessary to gain a control of sorts over my physical, emotional, and intellectual brains. It’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted. Also the most important because it’s what awareness is all about. So I don’t go spewing my life-force on the toilet floor or feed some hungry young mouth. I attempt to channel my energies. Slowly, daily, minute by moment, I get there. Of course, sometimes I just don’t give a shit and do what I feel—like beating off in bed and sleeping late or being moody and doing nothing or just quickpunching the first idiot who hassles me when he shouldn’t.

And this Amnesty situation is not something that is conducive to smooth vibes. Christ, they been bullshitting around about this thing for 3 fucking years now. I mean, shit or get off the pot. The way it looks now, though, a government is on the verge of emerging from the political chaos that is the Turkish equivalent of the Democratic Process. And the head of the majority party of the coalition govt. says his first order of business will be granting an Amnesty. He’s proposed a 15 year general amnesty which would still leave me with 6 years 8 months but perhaps there’s more to it than that so we’ll wait and see. I fully intend to make Morocco before too many months pass.

How long will you be in Klosters [she got a job as a cross-country ski instructor at this fancy resort in Switzerland]? Your big postcard, the first one with the letter, was a welcome piece of news. I’m glad for your happiness and your feeling for life vibes me so strong. The mountains and the stillness of snow on the forest. The real feeling of working till exhausted and then laughing, ready to face whatever tomorrow may bring along. I can’t say about gorgeous creatures out of Vogue, but we have some amazing creatures here. I’d like to bring twenty of the choicest misanthropes of the prison over to your social scene in the resort. The place would never recover. Ah, a warm brandy and a roaring fireplace, bearskin rugs and hot cocoa and mayhaps even a small joint or two to mellow the mind. And have you seen anything of this Kohoutek fellow? With the artificial horizons of the walls and this two week overcast, it appears doubtful whether I’ll be getting a glimpse of the comet or not. I was looking forward to seeing it but no big problem. Maybe I’ll catch it next time around [due back in 75,000 years]. Door opening—

Bread has just arrived, sixty-two of them in a big canvas sack for the sixty-two prisoners here in the foreigner block. That’s one bread a man but if you don’t get downstairs and cop one right away, DING DONG, it’s gone, some guy’s eaten the whole thing and cleaned up the crumbs already.

I guess I could go on writing and talking to you page after page but now my stomach is yelling for some attention and since I denied my loins I’d better oblige my belly. Everything with balance. Must be a joke to hear me speaking about moderation. But then, what isn’t a joke. Smiling at the insane loveliness of existence…

Touching you,

Billy