in jail they slip your
food under the door
and the gaurds only
walk around as many times
as they absolutely have to
and
i lie on the floor,
points of pressure failing
to pad the solid concrete
that is my bed.
keith has a wife,
he’s lying next to me
because he beat in
her ex’s door because
he was keeping her kids
and they called “breaking
and
entering”;
tony is from detroit and
got caught driving without
a license and all of his
people left him here,
he tells me about his
cars
and
females
and
houses
and how they caught him slipping
caught him slipping and
he shouldn’t even be stayin’
here for no three hunnid dollas

god,
aint this some bullshit?
this phone only calls who it
wishes,
this cell sits harder than
all of humanity…
lets no light in
lets no one leave,
lets no statements
be made of it or on it
except for “help me!!!”
which tony wrote on his
concrete bed with the pen
that i stole from the clerk
that we also made playing cards
out of with our pieces of
papers given to us by the
man;
these papers containing important
information about the number
of dollars we are to give
to the man for our offenses
against public safety.