where did the years go
where have they taken me
in what reality has these years placed me?
I see men the age I was when I first arrived
they make me realize the pain of the years I’ve gained
or lost
somehow I’m 31
but I still feel like I’m in my early 20’s
many around me have just reached drinking age
some have yet too
I thought I was a part of this young crowd
but now I’m the old one
I was the one looking up when I first arrived
now I’m learning to embrace that I’m the one being looked upon
how did these years catch me so fast
I see men in their 30’s 40’s and 50’s
going to school to get their g.e.d.’s
we’re so punish driven as a society it seems
we punish an act with an unwavering narrow single minded focus
and rarely consider the road that led them there
does that act not also deserve punishing for being the perpetrator
our legal remedies are emblematic of how medical processes
prescribing diagnoses and cures for symptoms
which may impose other kinds of symptoms
while rarely attacking the cause of them
and now a revolving circuit of perpetuation becomes solution
what age will I be when I arrive
arrive…? or depart
I arrived in prison and departed from freedom
now I’ll arrive to freedom and depart prison
but will I ever catch up to the years that lapped me
evolving through these evolving role changes in prison paints a painful narrative
as the door revolves, the young usher in
the old may depart
but that’s not as sure as the former
then the young will become older
and if they depart
more young will still continue cycling in
and fill the void left in the wake of the freed
but they will now be inhabited by a void
an internal one
that rivals the many they created once they left
will my void be filled inside of me once I’m free again,
the way my place in here will immediately be filled?
where did these years go
I’ve watched my sons grow in pictures
I’ve watched gravity change people I once knew
and I’ve been watching this world from inside a glass ball shooken up from time to time
and I see what they are too involved to see
proximity is invisible-
I mean, the lesser my years get
the older I get
the closer I am to freedom
but I can’t see that line of freedom I stalk
its wrapped in an allusive date
subject to change
and treated like both a wavering idea and luck
that quakes at the mercy of a possible changed mind-
being the last state left with a parole board-
not as a privilege or right owed to me
which may serve to keep me preserved from the free polluted air I crave so much
where quantity is no longer controlled but negotiated at a price
and a quality higher than this, is a norm I’ve since forgotten
where did the years go
the mystery is- if I’ll even want them back
because I remember all too clearly what they once held
and where that carried me
I never want to go back
though I wish like most that I had my youth back
but the wisdom that has been forced upon me has taught me that youth was an embarrassment of riches
a spoil that I knew not how to budget and divvy out with modesty
and I soon became bankrupt
with wasted vitality and virility
I can’t chase what I’ve lost
or ask questions when I know the answers all too well
because I know where the years have gone
they’ve gone forward,
as have I
though I feel left behind
and world doesn’t care as much if I was anyway
but I can’t afford to look backwards a moment longer
ready or not
here I am
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