The Prison

The first day of prison felt beguilingly like freedom, a coming home, but it wasn’t. It was a trap when I became somebody else. Surely and steadily it closed me down. The walls encroached while I stood there in my dress of sacking, blue-green jute, and smiled.

            There were compensations in my prison, which I hadn’t anticipated; they brought me joy. The little faces of the babies looked up at me wide eyed while their fists pummeled my breasts. At first greedy, then playful they would dart on and off laughing up at me.

            The first day of prison was the beginning of something new. Inside it’s walls was an unexpected gift seducing me so that I was unaware of how trapped I was. The first day of prison is an eternal story written down by men and women where they stop seeing and knowing each other.

            The first day of prison is a new start. The walls are of my making. They define me. Who I am, what I want and where I am going. Without the walls nothing will come to fruition. The walls of the prison shift in and out. While I look they disappear into the distance and climb high to the stars. The red brick walls metamorphose into slate with steps jutting from them. I start to climb my prison wall to look over the top. Glancing down my world has shrunk. Below are the babies and their world. Up and up I climb hanging precariously to the slate walls. My grip slips, the slate is wet and grey and blurs in front of my eyes. Panic surges upwards. I close my eyes and breathe slowly, carefully. I am lost between worlds neither in one nor the other. ‘Don’t look down, don’t look back.’

            Looking up I see the top of the wall rise higher, out of reach, but climb doggedly, full of determination.

The copyright of this post belongs to Moira Cormack