It just all seemed kind of pointless that this whole experiment that they call prison was just kind of puffing out the worst of the worst.
I wrote this poem a few years ago. I was in a cell. We were on lockdown. The building, the theater rather, was quiet and I was just listening to the conversations that the brothers were having and it just all seemed fruitless. It just all seemed kind of pointless that this whole experiment that they call prison was just kind of puffing out the worst of the worst. I think that I thought at that moment that that was by design. From the conversations that were being had, to the things that people were looking forward to, which was really the same that got them incarcerated. So a lot of my poems that I write tend to be moved by my experiences or moved by other people’s experiences that I see around me or that I hear around me. I just got moved to write it at that moment.ย
Sleepless Thoughts from the Cage
Sleepless thoughts from the cage.ย
The rage I release on the pageย
as I say.ย
Who can stand as a man behind bars thatย
shackle our potential.ย
Battle scars and mental wounds show and prove what I’ve been through.ย
Sleepless nights on empty bunks.ย
Contemplating.
Wishing that I can take back the past.ย
Yet in this place of despair, hopes and wishes don’t last.ย
Inside five by seven coffins is where the living call their graves.ย
Brain dead, it’s a shame weย
walk around in chains.ย
Still know we slaves.ย
Where the young and the dumb come to make a name,ย
striving to get made, and theย
wiser man turns new leafs,ย
striving to get saved, while theย
devil sits in black rows, pointing fingers,ย
proclaiming it’s too late,ย
someone open up the gates for heaven’s sake,
ย just to take it all away,ย
the sleepless thoughts from the cage,ย
help to keep the ghost away.ย
At least I pray,ย
cause they right here chasing in this place we call hell, now,ย
tell me, do it feel good to burn?ย
Your child is experiencing the world and you’re not there to help him learn.ย
One can only hope a cycle ain’t repeated andย
he doesn’t experience the same thing we did.ย
Becoming a man not there to raise his kids. Now,ย
is this all that sneaking and thieving,ย
slanging and banging have to give?ย
If so, you can have this shit back.ย
Along with all my tears,ย
cause see I cry on Friday night.ย
Like most men do.ย
Yet we feel we got to walk around with our chest poked out like we got something to prove.ย
Trapped in a place where the wolves prey on the meekย
and devour the weakย
and don’t nobody say grace.ย
Yet if you feel that you are too hard to cry as a man for yourself,ย
then you have become a disgrace.ย
In the mind,ย
See we done got too used to doing time.ย
Don’t you see that we the sons of manย
stopping our own shine.ย
The deaf, dumb, men, blind.ย
Like men in their 40’s still trying to live out our old name.ย
Mentality’s a youngster soย
you can’t teach the youngsters nothing.ย
You still don’t see the shame.ย
This useless pause in life’s chess game.ย
We look at ourselves in the mirrorย
when we’re searching for the blame.ย
I tell you, in this hell, it burns.ย
I know it hurts.ย
Just too bad we didn’t think about that while doing all this dirt.ย
And our soiled deeds and fanatical schemes.ย
To spoil dreams, turn to nightmares.ย
Realities that feed your beast.ย
In the cage.ย
Trying to remedy all this rageย
that keeps me up.ย
It’s stuckย
with sleepless thoughtsย
released on the pageย
while attempting to standย
as a manย
behind bars.
