Beautifully Damaged

“In my mind,

there’s a boy who exists in chains,

inside a cold dark room of painful solitude,

is where he’ll remain.

Behind these walls,

the sorrow is inevitable,

as relentless as the passage of time.

Mentalities corrupt in dark,

brainwashed and hopelessly blind.

Prisons are packed with crowded spaces,

lifers, and guards with hallow faces.

Shackled hearts afraid of changes

and weakened wills are complacence,

yet, I maintain the patience.

Time can limit but not shatter my will,

strength blazed across my chest

as solid as penitentiary steel.

But the silence speaks,

it tells me all I need to hear.

It confirms my beliefs

and its promises I have to fear,

it reminds me that without freedom,

I’m alone.

And these white washed walls

don’t make up for blacken souls.

I’ve given 95% of my boys

a hand shake and a pound,

before they were either locked down

or buried off in cemetery grounds.

What I’ve done is who I am

but what I am is what I do now.

I won’t let up or cease to fight,

just this time, I plan on doing it right.

And what’s right, lies within me.

I’m learning to appreciate my struggle,

for it would be hard to find

the joy of accomplishment without it.

We live and we learn,

we rise and we fall,

like the heart beat of a sleeping giant

with bitter sweet dreams.

Stay up, not down.”

– James Burns