Notes from Exile: Doing Time

Log/Verse: daily reflections from prison, written every morning at my bunk. Part poem, part log book.

In keepiing with this week’s theme of Daily Life in a prison camp, following is an entry from my prsion journal, CLOCKS.

CLOCKS

There are six clocks in the camp, and all are wrong. They’re close enough to manage our schedules. Other than that, they’re no concern to us. Only the calendar matters.

But there is another clock in prison. It has no instruments. It runs on increments between realizations and daydreams while trudging the days’ menial priorities. Lurking in those increments, the clock recalibrates and the calendar never stops.

Everyone counts the days. Some say the days go slow but the weeks go fast, and the months even faster. I haven't decided which is which. I only know my days are running out, and too many to count.

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