by "Ghost," a maximum security prisoner
When hope is aroused—or even the possibility of that hope’s approach—the body, of it’s own accord, fills with a reservoir of bated breath, as though preparing for the shouts of joy and happiness, victory and triumph, that are sure to come, no longer checked by the dams of possibility and doubt shored with the black mortar of cynicism.
Unfortunately, this air, this breath, this Spirit, must go somewhere. No man, no woman, can live long with held breath! But where? Where, if disappointment is strapped to the back of the dawn, yet again, like a plow whose dull blade knifes through hearts swollen with hope?
Perhaps in a shout still, but one so new and full of hurt it must be swaddled in the torn, blood-soaked rags of rage. But what if the shouts of wrath and rage have long been beaten down and whipped into whispers of malice in the night that somehow becomes smiles in the morning. What, then, of that inhaled breath, that inhaled spirit? To know the answer is to know sorrow’s song.
©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org