Incarcerated Poem by Ebone' Ingram

I'm sitting in this prison
counting the days
until you free me.
The laws are getting stricter
and your hand keeps closing on me
tighter,
tighter...
until my cries are choked.
My eyes are raw from weeping
behind these iron bars,
under my melancholy black and white,
because I have no friends
and I get no visitors-
another sanction of yours.
The funny thing is
I was wrongly accused;
I'm innocent; everyone
tells you that to this day.
And yet I'm still here.
I'm still here, and I
watch you from my cell
as you walk by,
those keys that locked
my happiness out
enclosed in your left fist,
a club that you threaten me with
hanging from your belt
(but the pain of confinement
is still worse than
the electric chair) .
And as I watch you
and your haughty being,
that demon that vexes my sanity,
i can't wait to be free.
The tally marks fill the wall
and my unknown sentence
gets longer by day.
I harbor the thought
of the day it ends;
the day that door is unlocked,
I will run and jump,
play and love...
and you will be the inmate instead.
I will laugh when I see you
in that cell alone
though I barely know you;
for that is how you treated me
when I was convicted,
charged though innocent;
I will laugh at you,
my hated friend,
for you were always the guilty one.