“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
Kelsey With Some Jo 