Every day I see the bars.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh….. FUCK!!!!!!!
Every day I see the bars. I live behind them. They grow from the ground organic and symmetric, in perfect parallel lines, interlocking to form the fourth wall, to keep me from the three dimensions. They don’t need food. They don’t need water. They were forged from iron and steel, the fingernails of the devil keep me in his sinister grip.
Fuck you, Satan.
Every day I see the bars. Every night I fall asleep to them, swaying in the breeze of the open air window, lazy and tired after a long day of holding me down, keeping me in my place, sealing my fate.
My fate is unsealed.
Every day I see the bars, every morning smiling wide in my open eyes like a set of fresh-brush teeth. They grin.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
They all of them, they wrote me off a long time ago: I’m an ignorant, I’m a lifer, I’m an animal.
They’re all wrong. All the people and all the bars. I’m a person. I’m a human being. With a taste for the bloody things in life. I order my steak rare just like you do. The only thing that separates us, the only dividing line: these bars.
These fucking bars.
I live behind them. Every day they mar my vision, they poke my eyes. People need to stop yelling at me. That toothless fuck Brewster in the mess hall every day, opening his mouth full of prison mush, making me look it, "Wanna bite, Ricardo?" One day I'll put my fist down his throat and choke him to death slow and pretty.
I see them. I see the bars. Every day I make the walk: down the line, the painted line on the concrete floor with the other inmates, the painted line parade that leads us in a circle. Around the other faces. Around the second floor cages. It’s supposed to break us. Maybe I don’t break.
Maybe I broke a long time ago.
I’m coming out soon, to the world you call home, to the jotunheim, to the lap of your loved ones, to your kitchen table good and proper that shines in the sun you call your own. I’m going to overturn your shaker of salt. I’m going to spill your pepper.
I do bad things, I know that. But that’s only because that’s what I want to do. That’s what’s inside me. Bad things, I suppose. Those are your words. Dark things that feel good. Somebody has to do the bad things. It’s a gift. It’s a fucking calling.
Every day they let us out from behind the bars so we can build the wall.
Day after day they march us to the construction site. In straight lines like soldiers under guard. Day after day they tell us to lay the bricks. It's our day labor and we have no choice: we build the building brick by brick, grids of geometric block stack to reach the heavens. To summon the hell. We build the wall. The prison is expanding. The jackets watch us and they laugh. They beat us with Cypress branches. You get not to feel it and the blood it clots eventual. I don’t no longer see faces. I want to break the wall. I want to topple those bricks to the ground.
In solitary it’s so quiet I can hear the wolves crying. I can hear the ones separated from the pack, lost and lonely, looking up at the moon and praying they were not alone. Sometimes in solitary I howl along with them. The howling doesn’t help because the jackets and the men they think I’m just a madman. Maybe they’re right about the wolves. Maybe they’re right about the madman. I'm the madman.
Every day I build the wall. I do what I am told. I eat my day's labor and cough up dust. Every day I stack the bricks. I was not born for this: I was not born to be slave for a society lie. I was not born to die a broken. I been drawing maps in my notebook. Maps and plans and smiles and schedules. You don’t need to know dates and times. You’ll never see me coming. Words have been underlined in pencil. Underlined in pencil several times. I have the idea. I was not born for this. Every day I build the wall. Every day I see the bars. I live behind them.
But not for long.
No comments:
Post a Comment