Doing Time

 

With my head on a swivel I spy the corners of my room like a prisoner with a slit for a window and a gym mat for a bed.

Plotting and wondering about my next move, because that’s all you got to do. Except for the few moments you are outside or when you get mess call to prepare meals.

It’s a routine with a hierarchy born out of intimidation and necessity.

Where everything’s a little game you have to play, the side hustle, the secret deals. Funny thing about this prison, is it’s all voluntary. No one sentenced you other than yourself.

But you stay because you have to, because you’re needed, because you think you got nowhere else to go.

So you serve your time, till a hearse finally rolls you out and they bury you in the cold, cold ground.

Don’t sound like much and it doesn’t mean there isn’t a little excitement. Like a visit from a friend or a phone call or two, don’t forget the long letters home that get spied upon by god knows who.

So you don’t think about it much—you just flow with the routine, the side hustle, you keep your nose clean.

Or as clean as you can get away with.

Time is just a metaphor for all you got left, I suppose.

Still wishing you had a smoke or a side piece of ass, if you still did that thing. So you stick to looking at the walls, dreaming of a life outside.

Doing your time, learning a few new tricks along the way. But what would you do in the open air?

Would you wander around and find new things? Or would you just shut yourself behind another locked door?

Dreaming of what could have been, but never really was.

So take this for what it's worth, from one prisoner to another.

Doing time is often no more than doing time and a life of freedom is often no more than a prison itself.

 

#DoingTime #WastedYears #Stagnation #Freedom #Prison