Compressed Cardboard

by Paul Tristram / June 9th, 2019

Well, you’ve finally made it
all the way down the Rabbit Hole…
it doesn’t get any more Secure,
or Depressing, than this.
Prison was the last place
where you were allowed to be ‘Social’
until you Jekyll and Hyde-ed it one day
and stamped an ‘Anti’ in front of It.
You caught a glimpse of your own face
(Not The Ones Which Haunt You)
in the side window of the van
as they Ghosted you over
to this Maximum Security Care Facility…
and you actually scared yourself
(You have the eyes of a leopard,
why has no one pointed this out before?)
You spend your time Fighting
the Medication, rather than other Inmates,
it spoils all Focus, disrupts Anger
and cripples you with Nausea.
And, you daydream about caterpillars
eating green leaved, yellow flowered plants
outside the front gate of your Auntie’s house
in the school holidayed Summer,
back when you were still only a ‘Watcher’
and your ‘Mental Hand Grenade’
was yet to Fragment … (STOP!) …
with the coming Pressure and the Pain.

Paul Tristram is a widely published Welsh writer who deals in the Lowlife, Outsider, and Outlaw genres.  He wrote his first poem as a teenager following his release from the (Infamous) Borstal ‘HMP Portland’, and he has been creating Literary Terrorism ever since.  His novel ‘Crazy Like Emotion’ published by Close To The Bone Publishing is available to purchase right here Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.

This article was posted on Sunday, June 9th, 2019 at 8:03am and is filed under Poetry.