Prison Tattoos

We all have our prisons; we make our walls

We balance chaos in the confines of stories

Scripted in graffiti we mumble to ourselves  

In blurry hieroglyphics which appear to passersby as inky-nonsense  

The rationale is often intrinsic and independent of facts

Why marks blaze across skin tattooed in elected-permanence

Is known internally and communicated externally,

Yet these explanations are vastly different organisms 

The DNA of words is of a common genus, but split

As neither takes priority for so often the misconception becomes the shelter

That allows a man to breathe most deeply for if clarity prevails

He finds a quagmire of tethers like bolas on his ankles gulping him into quicksand   

The porridge of vowels and consonants go to war inside him

Lancing and parrying for dearest life as each iteration knows comfort

One to convert the other to placate this institutional confinement’s purpose  

As if a man given time to pace in a box is accumulating production

With each toe motioning from brain stem to metatarsal is from a conscious act

And the repetitions bear lessons for the man to imbibe modicums of value

As if this was the toil of Sisyphus wearing down the boulder to a pebble  

This self-restriction is of holy virtue or divine sacrament,

As men are told penance is glorious irrespective of past misdeed or grace

One is to see flaws like lines in the skin so that when viewing a leg or an arm

One thinks of the sins of time wrapping like barbed wire of human frailty  

So it is in this stitching we thread our veins in a common color blood

That is blue beneath and red breaking the surface

Burning into man’s sense of order of what is worthy of fear or worry 

So these problems become nothingness and out of nothingness into shackles

Linking the man we were to the man we are despite knowing

The walls do not exist