By Zachary Redfearne

Rules enforce a procrastinated mediocrity by day

while at night I lay on this steel bunk

where there is little room

for me and the disempowerment

that smudges my body’s outlined purpose.

Inadequacy layers me in sheets

that entangle and suffocate

the endowment of my soul.

My open eyes mimic the lunar passage

across the razor wire forest

behind the guard tower trees.

The fence stands against the courage of hope.

What could have been

weighs through me like a batter

never knowing the hint of my daring to rise.

Stars come, marking their time.

We are trapped by bars

and how we believe in them

in this snow globe of night.

Then born from the absence of cause,

a lightness dissolves my defeat

to an empty pit.

There is space enough, the silence whispers,

for the absurdly impossible Freedom.