Prison Walls Echo
Andrew Dickerman

thick concrete walls, cold steel plank benches.
the fluorescent lights reveal
the slick human grime and muck
that has oiled all the surfaces.
it casts everyone in its reach
with blown out glows and long dark shadows.
after several weeks without natural light
the eyes get used to this
artificial luminescence and the skin becomes sallow.
we are not complete humans anymore
but creatures
between
worlds.
we exist like insects
all fluttering and silent.
our pupils expand until a black hollow is all that is left.
pig faced deputies drop nectar by our cages
and locust and dragonflies, alike
reach in a torrent of limbs
groping and screeching and never satisfied,
never whole.
a cool wind blows but
we cannot feel it.
we know somewhere winds lick the crests of sand dunes smooth.
that upon some ancient peak
a cold blast burdens packed ice.
that winds all over are churning great dark bodies of water
into other great dark waves
that will move and froth,
cleansing and absolving
anything in their path.
we know the divine breaths of air
exist,
somewhere, but we do not feel them
because we are locked in the pits
of someone’s forsaken castle.
we are where sun and earth
do not exist.
where water and heart
bleed dry.
we are nowhere.
the crevices and cracks of these walls
are lined with the sediment
of our souls.
it is a heavy dust
that cannot be brushed or blown away.
eventually it will be
all we have left
to remind us of
our former selves.
sanity,
like time
becomes an indefinite concept.
we know that both do not matter anymore
but we like to pretend.
we like to act as though we still have the ability to gauge sanity and time
but we know that we do not.
and it is good
that we don’t
because if we were truly capable of
that kind of introspection
we would not be able to handle
what we would see.
beyond our veils
is now too much for us
beneath our moist
darkened eyes
it is…