A Thousand Yard Stare

A THOUSAND YARD STARE

Barricaded in by the unrelenting barriers of confinement;

In this small compartment in which I live,

I can barely extend my limbs;

Losing my complexion,

Denied my visual capacity to see beyond a few feet in every

Direction;

I question Jehovah,

Even the mirror ‘s reflection crowds my space giving me feelings

Of claustrophobia.

Bereft of freedom, I sit in somber and silent stillness like

An empty body ,

With my face baring an infinite expression of melancholy;

Staring a thousands yards into a parallel universe,

Where the comforting memories of yesterday’s peace and contentment

Are certainly

Polarized by today i s painful misfortunes and tomorrow’s

Uncertainties .

Staring a thousand yards into the distance,

Where in an instant, I feel the gravity

Of my circumstance pulling intensely at my sanity;

Trying to divest me of my humanity;

Feeling like my life’ s journey ’til this point was all vanity.

Staring a thousand yards into the wall right in front of me,

I see vivid images of friends and family

Carrying on casually,

With infinite indifference towards this solitary existence,

Which consists of bare subsistence,

And inconsistent legal assistance

Where friendships that were once close-knit,

Despite my persistence, are now distant;

My feeble heart tormented

By my own insecurities regarding my love interest.

A thousand yards I stare into the great ‘Nowhere’

The infamous abyss; an immense void

Staring attentively

Deliberately injecting steroids into my own misery.

My mind wonders a thousand yards yonder,

Where my sight

Detects a familiar image emerging from the misted light;

Right before my eyes

Appears Lady Suicide;

The Harlot,

Adorned in scarlet negligee;

She does not walk, she glides,

And with every stride

Her hips sway in a way that is destructively seductive;

Mysterious!

And though I never take her serious,

I reach out to touch her; deliriously curious.

But she disappears;

Right there,

Her image dissipates into the air,

Dissolved into the infinite Nowhere,

Along with everything else that was there

Within my thousand yard stare.

By :

Yaphet Davis

From the minds of many inmates dealing with the mental and emotional stress of incarceration.