All For More (Or Less)

There comes a time when silence is best.
Just be quiet. Be still.
Let your eyes close and let your breathing slow down.
Relax.
And when there’s nothing else, then there’s nothing left to lose.
So, sit still. Be calm.
Close your eyes and fade.

I have no room nor energy left to fight off the hounds who wait around the corner. I have no energy to fight off the newspapers or the gossip mills and nor do I have the time or the energy to defend myself to the gossip mills.

I have no time left, except of course, I have all the time in the world, which is all there is when someone is serving time inside of a small cell. Life in a cell is life when it’s penned up, and all you become is someone who is positioned away from the rest of the world.
You are shelved, so-to-speak, or otherwise forgotten and only remembered a during random moments of quick recollections and sadly, you are gone, and thus you are quickly forgotten again.
Sad. Yes.
But true.

it would be inaccurate to say that governments are only set in places like cities and states. No, this is not true.
There are governments of all kind, especially here.

Safe to say, there will always be scavengers. There will always be predators. And there will always be a food chain, to which we only have so much of a choice as to where we fit in this chain.
Beware of the weaker, for they are never expected to devour you whole.
And be mindful of those who appear to be bigger, for they use their might and appearance as a means to get you to submit, and surrender yourself to be eaten alive.

Safe to say the shower room perverts and opportunists can only feast on the weak for so long. Safe to say there is always someone weaker and yes, I assume there will always be someone stronger.

Safe to say that we can all assume the predictions of being a product of our environment. And yes, I am a product of many things.
We all are.
It is dark this morning, The winter has settled in and my bones feel the draft and the chill, which is uncomfortable to me.
My blanket is thin.
But at least, I have one.
I saw someone in the yard, laying in a foul stench, homeless and soulless and smelling from the rankest filth one could imagine.
Purgatory loves its homeless. And the guards regard them as invasive and like unwanted pests because who wants to subdue a man who soiled himself and reeks of armpits and dirty asshole?

This prison is far bigger than we think. . .

There was a cell down the line where a man hung himself in the middle of the night. I suppose he and Purgatory had to agree to disagree because he couldn’t hold on to see what would follow.
He lost his feelings of whether there was life after incarceration.
He didn’t care because the hell he faced was far less than the hell he lived with.
or at least, so I was told.

I was told that they found him early. I was told that his skin was blue. I was told that he left a few things behind to share his thoughts with the people who let down, —a note, of some sort.
He left behind a pendant from his necklace to be handed to a loved one. And I am sure there was more.
But the story only reached so far.

I was told the man couldn’t understand anymore, that life was too hard, and his confusion reached its limit. He wanted more.
He wanted to be better but he had too many questions that began with the word, “why?”

I was told that he left behind two children. And I was told that he was sad for them, but in his best estimation, or so I was told; he said, “as bad as the news would be for my kids, it would be better for them to be without me.”

I knew of a man who lived outside the walls of Purgatory. He had a family and a so-called “real life” to the effects that no one would know, no one would have guest, and no one would have ever thought that this would be him.
No one.
Including me.

Apparently, there was an argument at home. Apparently, there was a dishonesty and worse, apparently the heartache and the pain that came after “her” infidelity was enough to wound him deeply.
This wounded him so that he ended “her” and himself, shortly thereafter. No one knows the details or the truth about the fight that took place.
All we knew was the blood was unthinkable and the end was unstoppable.
And so, I have heard people discuss suicide or self-destructive deaths as “avoidable deaths,” to which I question because if they were avoidable, the people who died from them would still be alive.

As for the man with a so-called “real life, no prison could hold him. No jail. No Purgatory. No judge nor jury.
No, this man decided to handle his own damnation.
And it was said that perhaps only Hell has a place for him now, —and this might be true. But I am unsure who has the right to assume this.
I am not God nor anywhere close to be a fit judge, and to be honest, since none of us here on Project Earth will be at the gates of Heaven to accept tickets or collect for the price of admission, I assume that none of us have the right to damn or condemn him.

It is an odd time of year too, —not just in prison, or not just in the winter months, which loose light too quickly in the afternoon, and this is not because the sun wakes up later than usual either.
No, this is scheduled to be the so-called “most wonderful time of the year!”
This means Christmas. This means the New Year.
This means a time when all gather with their family, —to which I often wonder, what about those who have no family?
Or what about those who are too distant or forgotten?
What about the fallen or the urban soldier who fought too many wars in their own head, and of course, what about their common tragedies?
What about their casualties and the catastrophes that led them to be the way they are?
Or wait . . .
What about the forsaken?
And what about those who rest inside the prison walls?
Does anyone care?
How wonderful is this time of year?
How promising is the New Year when people are incarcerated and count the years by seasons and how promising is it to add decades with hopes that perhaps, maybe they might get out and see freedom before they die.

What about St Dismas, The Good Thief?
Wasn’t he healed?
Then why not some of us sinners?
Or why not all of us?
Wasn’t The Good Thief welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven?
And if so, then why?
Is this because he acknowledged The Son of Man at the hour of crucifixion, or realized the wreckage of his own sins?

I don’t know. . .
Each night, I lay as still as I can before falling to sleep. I’ve marked the walls at the side of my rack to account for my time served. I have allowed this to be a testament to my time. I count the days which add to weeks, which turn into months and add then into years.

Ah, Purgatory—

You and your guards and the powers that be have become an understandable deterrent to the hopeful sense in me. You have tricked me more than once and yes, you have tricked us all into believing that no one goes to The Father, not even through The Son.
No one is free unless they serve their time or serve as their penance to repent and if at all possible, —no one can be born again, not of the flesh, but of the mind and spirit.

It is all too shaky now and the news is all too published.
Everyone knows . . .
Everyone sees . . .
The world is hell-bound
and so are we.

Everyone points and blames and, in the end, everyone faces their own judgment and fails according to their own standards.
I know this is true.
No one can pass their own tests.

Ah, Heaven.
I ask of you.
Where are you?
Where have you come from?
Have we created you in the likes of our own images and have we allowed you to be our creator as a means to have a reason or a purpose to continue?

Tell me, please.
Nourish me. Help me.
Safe to say I have had enough of the violent rapes and the molested lifeforms which have deformed the way we see the world and poisoned our views of the greater good.

Mother, I ask that you comfort me.
Father, I ask that you strengthen me.

Safe to say that I have heard enough from the darkness at night. I’ve heard enough cries from so-called grown men who otherwise appear strong and monstrous, but in all reality, no one is strong when they are caged for their weakness.

And as for Hell . . .
I wonder how our creations have made Hell more powerful than the Devil really is. I wonder why we feed you, like the demons who feed us lies of some quick redemption and whisper things like, “shh, take this and eat it. No one will know.”
But someone always knows.
Our conscience knows.
Hence, this is the reason why the vane love their mirrors but hide their truths to keep their infractions from creating lines on their face.

There is no sin worse than defacing the faces of beautiful people.
And there is no crime worse than thefts when it comes to thefts of the heart.
I know.
I answer for them still.

And just then, the demons crawled the floor in the version of dirty guards with secret ties to criminal minds.
Watch, for the master of the house came to see me.

Are you the one we heard about?
Yes. . .
Are you the one on trial?
Yes. . .
You better hold on to those prayers, son, because the beast took an interest in your case.

Sometimes, all you can do to avoid the mass-incarceration and keep from the dogs is to sit still, stay quiet, close your eyes, and hope or pray that life changes and your fears turn to something else.

“I see you decided to make it another day,” explained the warden during his “special” headcount.
Yes, sir.
“Do you think you can beat it?”
I can’t let it beat me, sir.
“The rumors are astounding,” he laughed.
I know, sir.
But rumors are rumors and truth is truth.

“We’ll see,” he laughed.
Then he turned to notice my wall and the ways I draw things to keep me sane.

“What’s that on your wall?”
“Are those lines to mark the years you’ll serve?”
He laughed to taunt me.

“And what’s that over there?”
Those are sunflowers, sir.
“To remind you of the sun?”
No, sir.
To remind me that no matter how bad you trat me; I know there is love out there for me

“We’ll see!” responded the warden.

“Oh,” he interjected before walking out to leave.
“There’s a few razor blades that come with the gossip column in your newspaper this morning. If you need them that is.”
No thank you, sir.
I think I’ve killed myself enough for one life time.

I closed me eyes.
Beware, the walls you depend on.
They are only as thick as you imagine them to be.

Beware the lies
Beware the rumor mills and the gossip factories.
Beware the pain and the wounds and the memories and the sins they create.
Beware of them all, for they haunt me still