Does a pro se prisoner have to "cause" a request to the prison authorities?

Houston and Faile paint the pro se prisoner in a sympathetic light. We cannot in the name of sympathy rewrite a clear procedural rule, however. Neither Houston nor Faile supports such a rewriting. Moreover, Fex v. Michigan, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1085, 122 L.Ed.2d 406 (1993), would not allow it. Fex addressed the requirement that a prisoner "cause[ ] [a certain request] to be delivered." The court noted, "[Michigan] argues that no one can have 'caused something to be delivered' unless delivery in fact occurs. That is self-evidently true, and so we must reject [Fex's] contention that a prisoner's transmittal [of a request] to the prison authorities [suffices] even if the request gets lost in the mail and is never delivered...." Id. at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. at 1088-89.