Military boots clicking
beneath ticking dusted grounds.
Hit me once, hit me twice,
frayed ribs and crumbling skull.
Freedom, my friends,
is not free.
Malnourished with a
blindfold,
deteriorating body
to a chair,
the glass shifting
under my feet
as I long for just
one step.
Then finally the
moment comes,
where I'm pushed to
my knees
a gun pointed at my
temple,
some rambling of
foreign words.
The Britons are dead,
and now they come to me.
I hear the tick of
the trigger,
the clap of the
shot,
and it is certain
that I am dead.
...But thoughts,
still roaming like
ancient nomads.
It takes a year out
of the 2.5
to uncover shielded
eyes,
to free hands that
yearn to brush the soil
to which I was
born.
Over a bowl of
water and rice,
I tell them about
the wife,
the one from South
Africa,
who does not exist.
Hands connect the
dots,
paving Metro
stations on the wall.
The interviews with
Pillow,
reoccurring like
mathematical
shapes on tattered
curtains,
just to pass the
time.
Another cycle of
the 365,
to snap suffocating
chains,
releasing the
demons
from their bonds,
leaving
their whispers in
my ear.
“Hang with these chains, Peter.
Seize the opportunity.”
Philosophy burns
the demons,
because I wouldn't
see...
No, not the blank,
chalk slated stares,
not the dropped
monster jaws.
After a 2.5, I'm
exchanged.
I'm freed for the
military leader
who would sit in
chains,
eyes caressing a
blindfold,
hands cuffed to the
chair
that once melted my
strength.
He may end up like
the Britons I once
knew,
or maybe just like me.
With flayed bones,
and an aching
skull,
yearning to be free.
Someday,
he may have a gun
to his head,
with a clap that
ends his life.
He may have evil
demons,
that complete the
deed.
Or maybe, just
maybe
in a 2.5,
he'll end up
just like me.
Free.
