Distant voices bounce off the armored walls
Intercepting the clangings and the bangs,
Tunneling downwards darkness dripping halls.
Behind the bars and cinder a key hangs.

Guarded by men whose job to contain me
Dangling a freedom-shot that I have earned.
Limbo parole, life on hold, destiny?
Mistakes mangle my mind--thoughts reaffirmed.

Patrolling visitors passing judgement,
Exempting one from whom a gift was gave.
Keyhole made whole turning freedom's present,
Selfless motives bestowed life to a slave.

Passed the walls, bars, halls, and guards
Is a world from which I had ignored.
But a door lay 'tween my sanity
And that which from I'd bored.
Iron clad with wood reinforced
And a latch to contain my mates.
A thought suffice, hat tip belate
To those whom my fate escaped.

Purge conviction and justice
From this stone-horror enclave
Gripped until today,
To a world boundless in greens and grays
Soaked in delight and overcast haze.
Through fields and rivers I'll part my way
And rest none until I'm far away.
Far from the cubes of captured tales,
Stories of woe, and dreams that have failed

Worries reduced to a haunting past,
A prison towards my back.
I'll turn my eye towards comforting
Possibilities within my grasp.
A bed of dirt and cushions of leaves
Will be my place tonight,
And to the sun will be born
A future reformed
And possibility glowing bright.
Uncertain shelters allay my mind
With an uncertain future looming.
An uncertainty breeding ecstatically
With a former fate founded concretely.

"Lights out!" Echoing though the hallowed hall
Seeping into the bars that govern me.
Squared walls surrounding force me to recall
Boundless dreams and allowance to be free.



[edited slightly]