Azura, a jail is the

coldest, worst

place to be in.

Because the staves are shuttled over with a stark,

unprinted silence drawled out in the dark,

in a double dream which to yet spell out,

which only brews a storm who was given

birth by the stream of the hopelessness

pouring out of the clouds.

It reminds you of the old despondency

of day and night, of island emptiness

and solitude, unsponsored, free in the canvas,

of that wide water, inescapable,

pressure to blend with the world.

And as you sit in a room with bars

that your own soul is too afraid to

escape from, it reminds you that you are

trapped.

It traps your soul in these

bars. It reminds your faded

humanity—that is swimming inside

your bones—that you have no speck of

intelligence to escape through the bars.

It devours your mind into thinking that you

belong there. Maybe he thought so too.

Maybe when he clawed my mom's face and

tore open her blouse, he wanted his soul

to be trapped.

And maybe when he wrapped his fingers

around my tiny wrist as I stared in his eyes,

he knew it would be best if he was trapped.

Because what kind of father

dares to hit his own

four-year-old son.

My father.

And as his voice crept up behind me

with a sting of hatred and disgust, I

cringed and I could feel the tingle run

up my spine like a race to maybe a chance

of heaven or even a dance with the devil.

And when I asked him, "Do you

care?"

It became clear that people

are like ice;

they crack underneath pressure.