Encourage Me!

Isolation has been my refuge

But less a hermit than a prisoner

My jailors are ghosts

My mother the warden

My father the assistant warden

Countless failures

The guards that prevent me from

stepping out of line

Serving this sentence 40 years

No rehabilitation

Only desolate days

The dank hole of my mind

I’ve thought of escape from time to time

On each occasion my soul whispers

Futility

And I am resigned to my confinement

Still, my heart beats with erratic discontent

Blood pumping rumors of freedom

A better place for me

I pick up a pen and begin to write of my extrication

Daily I place ink on paper

A poem of slightest possibility

For two years I’ve been forming this literary key

Not a file, not a bar of soap, but words

Words that can release me from this hell

-

One night in October 2019

My sullen thoughts interrupted by voices

I looked out my dungeon window

A small group of people gathered

Each holding a sign

“John, You can do it!”

“Freedom is at hand”

Bewildered

Who were these people?

Why were they cheering me?

Like the Grinch felt his heart

grow three sizes

Hope expanded within me!

Pushing so hard 

Sanguine suffocation

-

I continued to write my poetry 

With each sentence I sensed the walls shaking

Each stanza, indestructible supermax crumbling

And the voices cheering me from outside

Louder and louder with each passing day

-

I have dreams now

Visions of running into

Waiting arms of those championing me

Falling at their feet in gratitude

For believing in me

-

I may not be free yet

But I’m one day closer than yesterday!

Please, keep encouraging me