Notes from Exile: Prisoners Lament
Log/Verse: daily reflections from prison, written every morning at my bunk. Part poem, part log book.
The first days are not measured in hours or routines, but in shock, loss, and a slow recalibration of self. What follows is a fragment of lived experience—an attempt to give language to that initial descent into confinement. Following is PRISONERS LAMENT, a log/verse entry from my journal.
PRISONER’S LAMENT
I arrived in a state of disbelief and anguished farewells,
a pervasive unease as the door closed behind me.
I was given a uniform, an invisible swaddling cloak,
prey and predator lurking like creatures
in the canyons of the seabed
and its mysterious leagues.
There are no mornings—only dreaded waking,
a grim seizure of place and confinement.
Sleep offers no measure of solace,
only the prospect of turmoil
and dreams that always find their breath.
Over time, yearning and longing give way
to cruel memory and false hope,
and the sad delirium
of counting days.
For readers interested in longer reflections on justice, incarceration, and exile, my essays are linked here at Minutes Before Six..
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