Eric Mills writes about his broken heart in prison. After discovering a passion for art and finding true love, he has a loss that changes his relationship with art forever.

It was my first time in prison. I was sentenced to serve 32 months, and if I behaved, it would be cut down to 25 months. All for receiving a stolen Best Buy gift card. While I waited in the county jail to be shipped off to San Quentin State Prison, I taught myself how to draw and create “I love you” cards and birthday cards.

I had a unique technique that consisted of line shading with a Bic pen, and I became adept in the use of lead and colored pencils to create works of art. I would draw roses, hearts, portraits, cartoons, and collages. I became good enough that my fellow prisoners would commission me to draw cards for their girlfriends or family members.

I used my newfound skill to support myself in jail. Creating art in prison became my new passion in life. It gave me joy to create something for people that would make them happy and appreciate what I created for them. Artwork gave my life meaning.

While I was still going through the court system to take a plea deal, get sentenced, and shipped off to prison, I called up a friend of mine to see what was going on in the streets. He told me that his girlfriend had a friend who was looking for a boyfriend, and she wanted to meet me. I was curious about this girl, and I told him to tell his girlfriend to tell her friend to come visit me.

It was two days after Thanksgiving 2004 when I was paged over the jail intercom system by the CO, “Mills, you have a visit.” This was my first visit while in jail. Not even my immediate family came and visited me. I spiffed myself up as much as possible to look presentable for my future girlfriend, despite having to wear an all-orange outfit that made me look like a carrot. This is not the typical attire one would wear when meeting a girl for the first time.

I walked into the assigned visit booth, and behind the bullet-proof glass, I saw the most beautiful girl I had ever laid my eyes on. 24 years old, full of life, almond-shaped brown eyes like a doe, lovely light brown skin, gorgeous flowing dark brown curly hair, thick luscious juicy red stunning lips, body so perfect it looked like God sculpted it with his very own hands, and a Marilyn Monroe beauty mark right above her upper lip, with a smile that shined so bright because she had braces, which only made her more exquisite.

She was amazing. She was the girl of my dreams, and she was right there in the flesh, just a few feet away from me. Her beauty made me nervous, excited, and anxious all at the same time.

I picked up the phone. She picked up her phone, and we began our visit. I stuttered like a babbling idiot with my tongue out, and my jaw dropped. “My-my-my n-n-name is E-e-eric. It-it’s s-so nice t-to meet you.”

I was so proud of myself for not drooling. I quickly gained composure and snapped out of it. We got to know each other through a glass barrier. I made a good impression, and we hit it off. I told her about myself, that I love to draw, and I would draw her something to show her my love and appreciation for taking time out of her day to visit me. She gave me her address and phone number and told me to call her. I left the visiting room on cloud nine, thanking God for blessing me with this beautiful angel who had decided to take the plunge and visit someone like me in jail, about to be sent to prison for two years. She was crazy, lonely, or just wanted to meet someone for companionship.

I went back to the jail dorm room and bragged to my fellow inmates that the prettiest girl in the world decided to visit me. I was ecstatic. That night, I got to work and drew her a card with a teddy bear holding a heart. On the heart, I wrote in Spanish, “Yo no tengo dinero pero mucho corazón para amor.” (I don’t have any money, but I have a lot of heart for love.) I poured out my heart and soul into my first card for her and mailed it off the next day.

I called her a few days later, and she told me she received the card and loved it. She said she would be visiting me later that night. Many visits later, we began to fall in love with each other. She told me first that she loved me, and then talks of marriage began to take flame before I was to be sent off to San Quentin.

Things between us started to move at light speed. In February 2005, I was shipped off to San Quentin to begin serving my sentence. When I arrived, I was processed in the reception center, which determines what security level an inmate is to be placed in and what California prison they will be shipped to.

I was sent to West Block to a small cell on the third tier. I began to draw immediately to make a Valentine’s Day card for my future wife. Art in prison gave me something to focus on while I was locked in my cell for 23 hours a day. To pass the time in reception, I made a card for my girl every day for 30 days. On my 30th day in reception, I was kicked out to the San Quentin prison main line, where I would serve the rest of my sentence. I was elated because this meant I would be at the prison closest to home, which was also the closest prison to where my girl lived. We would be able to cultivate our relationship through frequent contact visits in the visiting room.

As I adjusted to prison life and sharpened my drawing skills, my girl would visit me every Saturday and Sunday. She would arrive at the prison at 8:30 a.m., stand in line for about 30 minutes to an hour outside the prison, then we would begin our visit from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Those visits were the best days of my life.

I felt so loved and wanted. It felt amazing to know that someone on the outside loved and cared about me. And took time out of her day to come to prison and spend time with me. I was in love, and it felt incredible. My family wouldn’t visit me, but this girl did.

After 32 visits, getting to know each other in the visiting room, we took our relationship to the next level. We could have overnight visits by getting married. So in June 2005, we were married. That was one of the happiest days of my life. Now we could spend time with each other for 72-hour overnight visits. We had about six or seven visits, and in between, I expressed my love the only way I knew how: to draw for her.

I created masterpieces of art just for her. I would send at least two or three drawings every week. Creating art in prison became one of the main ways I showed her how much I loved and cherished her. I poured out my soul and creative energy into these drawings. Everything was going great between us. My girl made me want to change my ways and become the best version of myself. I couldn’t wait to get out of prison and start a life and family with my wife.

When everything seems to be too good to be true, it usually is. About six or seven months from my release date, things turned sour. My wife came to an overnight visit and wasn’t acting herself, like she didn’t want to be there. We were watching the television show Cheaters. She said, “I’m going to be on that show one day.” She pretended like she was joking, but she wasn’t. Her subtle comment meant that someone else had stepped into her life. I tried to brush it off and ignore what she’d said, but it was too late. The seed had been planted.

The weekend visits became one visit a week, then every other week, until she broke up with me. I was devastated. My heart was broken. The reason she gave was, “It’s not you, it’s me.” I know it was me because I was in her way of pursuing a relationship with another man, her ex-boyfriend.

I went back to my cell, sick. I became depressed. I was disappointed, miserable, and extremely sad. All the thoughts I had envisioned for a future together had been cancelled. I stopped drawing, stopped eating, stopped exercising. I went from 200 pounds to 165 pounds in 30 days. I couldn’t sleep at night, and all I could think of every day and every night was what I could have done differently so she would stay and continue our relationship, not give her love to someone else.

I became a shell of my former self. I would never be the same after she broke my heart. At the time, I didn’t know anything about mental health crises.

In November 2006, two months before I was to be released to freedom, my soon-to-be ex-wife visited me. It wasn’t to reconcile but to plunge the knife deeper into my heart. She handed me divorce papers and told me she had thrown away all of my artwork I had created for her. Then, as if it was nothing, she told me to call her when I got out so we could hang out.

I haven’t drawn again. What began as art in prison had become such an important part of my life, but my heart was destroyed and my creative energy was diminished. I haven’t created another piece of artwork since. I believe I will never be able to regain that creative energy that inspired me to create beautiful art. The day I was told my drawings were discarded by the one I loved most in the world, a piece of my soul became lost forever into the darkness of the abyss.