Talk with a Gun

It’s role call, and the guard barks out each of our inmate numbers at 5:15 am. 

When it is my turn, I answer with a voice that sounds as flat as a prison door buzzer. 

Although the bullets I fired were monotone as well, there was an electric wave that followed the pistol each time I pulled the trigger. 

Yes, in this cage, there are lightbulbs to erase a fraction of the looming shadows, but I don’t feel that spark. 

That lightning rush streams through my body as I use my hands instead of my tongue to speak. 

My voice which was full of rusty iron, isn’t enough to crack through the white noise of the world’s chaos. It isn’t enough to grasp some air time and introduce them to my inner demons.  

They don’t want to hear my words, but they sure listen when I talk with bombs, bullets, and blood. 

This is a novel filled with chapters on what it’s like to live inside a murderer's mind. 

There’s a memory of a pleasant family having a summer cookout on their manicured front lawn.

The little ones are spraying each other with water guns, while the big boys are upstairs playing Call of Duty. 

Between swigs of beer, the men discuss President Clinton bombing a possible weapon factory in Sudan. 

As one of the mothers flips the steak, the others toss salad and chop up watermelon. They chatter about how safe the neighborhood is for their kids now that each household is armed. 

No one talks about the air filled with sticky fear. No one stops their conversation to glance at the behaviors of the next generation. 

After all, let them kids be kids. 

Little do they know that their house has become a breeding ground for the daughters of Mary Bell, bowlers of Columbine, and the brothers of Jeffrey Dahmer.  

We are the offspring of America, yet none of us celebrate the freedom of the thirteen red stripes because they remind us of the metal lines that we are trapped behind.

None of us can recognize our country’s advancement when we are dehumanized and forced into modern slavery. 

This facility is a whirlpool that no one can swim out of. 

The word “rehabilitation” is a sharp joke that bounces off of the walls, like an echo rippling through a cavernous church. 

They preach that God loves all his children equally, but how can love squander our chances of healing? 

How can love produce more felons to shove into the corner? 

Is this truly the justice that was mapped out by our founding fathers? 

Are the Bill of Rights carved into each metal bar that holds me, hostage, because the police officer didn’t read them to me when he held my arms back with handcuffs?

Each day in this cage is a rerun of the 1971 Stanford Experiment. 

Each day burns out my craving to feel in control of another person’s breath, leaving me with lungs filled with smoke. 

Each day I fall asleep to words from written letters of the cellmate on my left 

and whimpers belonging to the cellmate on my right. 

The word privilege has been scribbled over by the pencil of punishment so many times. We no longer know how to earn anything other than scraps of pay to send to our kids or coins to keep for our next meal. 

Some of us get lucky with lawyers that can pull strings or judges that favor the color of our skin. 

As for the rest of us, when we ask about our release date, they tell us that this is our home, without even searching for the place that we came from.

They taunt and torture us for turning into the trash, yet don’t bother to help brush off the dust and take in the view of our history. 

Chopped off hair, flimsy uniforms, and ghostly faces, I found myself looking at a fellow inmate in the eye and wondering if I was hallucinating my own reflection.

It was then that it hit me; we are all being molded into a uniform set.

Our individual identities fading.

Our names were forcefully stripped.

Our open wounds were heavily salted, and our sound was mercilessly silenced. 

My voice which was full of rusty iron, isn’t enough to crack through the white noise of the world’s chaos.

 It isn’t enough to grasp some air time and introduce them to my inner demons.  

They don’t want to hear the sound of my tongue, but they sure listen when I talk with a gun.