So, you want honesty?
Okay, Let’s take it from here
Shall we?
And you know too. You know all about it.
You know about the ground beneath you and how it disappears. You know why everything you held dearly is gone and you know why the bottom lost hold and the fall is going to be far greater than any fall you’ve ever taken before.
You know.
You know all about it.
Maybe you have one or two options. Maybe there are a few choices.
Maybe.
But whatever the choices are, neither of them are attractive. None of your options are what you wanted and yet, this is it.
There you are. Alive and unwell and living pout loud while being consumed in the belly of the beast.
And you hope.
Or at least, you try to.
Maybe something will change.
You know?
Maybe you can put on a brave face.
Or maybe you can mix up a quick scam and win over the prosecution before the district attorney’s office comes for you and sees the blood on your hands.
Or maybe the judge will have a moment of kindness. Maybe you’ll get off again and despite the other dregs and the crooks and criminals, maybe your case might buy some kind of leniency.
Or maybe luck will show its face and the judge will give you some kind of mercy.
But deep down, you know the truth.
You know how heavy the crimes are.
And you know because you know the hate in your heart and the contempt in your soul was just as evil as the murderer in the cell which sits next to you.
You know you overplayed your hand. You know you bluffed.
And do you know what else?
You know the piper has come to collect and the time to pay was clarified when the handcuffs were slapped and closed around your wrists.
The sound of the cuffs . . .
This is both a sound and a feeling that never goes away and the echoes and the feeling that remain are heavy enough and stay with you into this new version of eternity.
You can point. You can blame someone.
You claim ignorance or plead insanity or beg for some kind of peace.
And pray.
Yes. Pray!
You pray with hopes to a lesser God.
But you know. Oh yes. you know.
You know what you did.
You know your actions matched your feelings and your emotions dug you in deep.
You know that while you tried your best to perfect your insanity; no matter how you shake or dance or run, the end is the end and all that you ran from has finally grabbed hold and all of your bullshit pulled a trick and caught up with you.
But you still try.
Right?
You state your cases as if to be guilty with good reasons.
Deep down, you know.
You know what you did.
You took a shot.
Your fictional reality made you think that maybe you could get away with it this time. Or maybe in all fairness and maybe in all honesty; your actions screamed out because your voice lacked the words to speak loud enough and ask for help.
Believe me. I know all about self-destructive behavior.
I know all about the belly of the beast and the turmoil that comes when the despair hits and the aftermath explodes like a mushroom cloud of hate and regret.
I know this all too well.
And dig it –
You try and come up with something to save your face.
But no.
You realize that you cannot save face and save your own ass at the same time.
You know who it was that caused the crimes. You know who it was that broke the law and let’s face the facts.
All the excuses and all the reasons and all the bullshit cons you come up with mean nothing in the court of law.
The executioner has no emotion.
You are just a blood bag and a slab of meat who lays dead on the chopping block.
Besides, the head porter comes to clean the blood stains and in the end, you’re forgotten about before the next crime is pulled and the next criminal is executed.
Or like Humpty Dumpty who sat on the wall.
Well, Humpty Dumpty took a fall and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again . . .
Right?
We are no different.
We took the risks and we sat on the wall.
We knew this was wrong.
We knew we were warned.
But ah, those bad things . . .
. . . they’ll never happen to me.
Right?
And we knew.
We that in the end somehow, this was going to be expensive.
“I’m going to have to pay for this one day.”
I remember saying this to myself while sitting in a fancy, five-star hotel on someone else’s dime.
I know that justice is what a man can afford. I know that a good attorney is expensive and a good attorney might be able to help someone beat the crime. But often enough, we dared too much and we dared the wrong things and we dared the wrong wall.
Sometimes, just like Humpty Dumpty, no one can put us together again.
And it’s a bitch too because I have seen bad men get slapped on the hand and skip out from their jail cells.
i have seen the wring guy who laughed last and in the end, the most beautiful girl in the world ended up with HIM!!
I have witnessed evil people with horrendous crimes and I have seen them take a walk and go free.
And who am I?
Who am I to judge?
I am a petty thief who dared the wrong wall.
I am the guilty one too.
Maybe what most fail to see is how often we beat the system.
Maybe we forgot to realize all the times we beat the game or scored and scammed and still; we got away with it.
Maybe we forgot to quit while we were still ahead.
Or maybe our fiction met with reality and then what?
We got caught . . .
. . . we begged and we pleaded
We swore that we were sorry . . .
. . . and we say things like,
I swear, I’ll never do it again.
You cannot save your ass and your face at the same time.
This is painful and true.
I have watched bad people come up with a good plan to work the system and trick the juries.
I have watched people find God too.
Yes. I have seen people become humbled and kneel in prayer.
But ah, yes. t
For one to be absolved from sin, it is said that one must have true sorrow for their sin. And still, all the kneeling and all the praying and all the pleading means nothing when the law comes to find you.
I have seen people come to Jesus and of course, I have laughed as they forgot about God just as quickly. Everyone is vigilant when the threat is near. And nearly everyone forgets the threat once the threats were taken away.
Everyone is afraid to fall when their toes are hanging off a cliff.
No one wants to fall that way.
And, so, I have watched people beg and pray and I have seen how their prayers vanish when the threat from the cliff vanish as well and the pain is no longer dangerous.
Everyone pleads and finds faith when they are desperate and scared of their own death.
And then . . .
. . . Then you hear a sound which is haunting and equally unforgettable.
Or wait.
no
This is me . . .
You hear the sound of barred doors rolling shut, which echo and explode with an atrocity that is both unthinkable and unmatchable to anything else.
And maybe . . .
. . . Maybe your incarceration is more figurative than literal.
Maybe your hell is not the same as mine or maybe you find yourself elsewhere.
You are there and I am here, serving a different kind of time.
Or meanwhile, maybe the threats are still too real to find out if we are eternally grateful or perhaps at the moment, we were just scared and the foxhole prayers were just some kind of security blanket to hold onto.
I have been alone and by myself and living in this solitary for so long now.
I put myself here.
I am in my own hell in a cell and for now; yes, I pray.
But Purgatory is no fool and neither are the sinners and saints.
Am I a fool?
Sure.
Why not?
Am I the fool who put me here?
Yes.
Of course.
And one day, should Purgatory agree to my time served; I will find out if I am fit to sit with the meek or to see how meek they’ll remain after inheriting the Earth.
Blessed are the meek, said The Son.
For they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are the imprisoned, I hope
For one day
We shall be set free
Come for me, please.
The time moves too slow and the hours echo worse than the sound of rolling doors and locking keys that turn loud enough to make the Devil grin
