Milan, 4th september
My parents and I never lacked for anything. But we were living in the middle of a civil war in which there was no state, just violence and chaos.
It was against this backdrop that I began to act like a rebel. I was drawn in by the attraction of evil. But it was all an illusion. It was able to delude us because we had nothing, we were just teenagers.
From that point onwards, egos grew. It was a war to see who was the strongest, who could do the most stupid things… Many young people were lost to bad choices, like stealing cars, for example. There were those who took ten seconds, those who took fifteen…
I even stopped going to school, it seemed pointless, I felt like I had the world in my hands. I was just like all the other teenagers who watched the top dogs and were fascinated by illegality, by breaking the rules and smashing things up. Until those wrong turns landed me in prison.
On that fateful day, I realised straight away in the morning that it wasn’t going to be a day like any other. I was at a birthday party when I got a call; in a split second I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and everything changed forever. A light went out and my youth with it.
That evening we went on the run. I was in shock, I was nothing but chaos. I lived as a fugitive for almost six years in Germany, until my arrest in 2006 and the start of my odyssey in prison.
Meta
Since 2023, Meta has been a free man. During his years behind bars, he learned the craft of a luthier (violin maker), and today he works with the Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti foundation in the Opera and in Monza prisons, where he teaches inmates how to make violins and crucifixes. He tells us what lead him to jail in the first place.