When a Book Changes Your Life

I have never thought about life this way

until words from the book hit me like lightning,

brightly displaying a new perspective,

where the darkness in thoughts must shy away.

**

A gentleman was wrongly jailed.

At the end of a day

where humiliation and torture rested,

greater pain pounded on him

the moment he thought of his family.

**

Prison walls were cold,

but worse is injustice.

Uncleaned toilets were stinky,

but worse is ignorance.

**

I started to see my cell,

one walled with dark and evil forces,

a part comes from within,

a part comes from the world.

**

We are all jailed,

as cold bars put up by hate and pride,

as distance created by misunderstanding

and refusal to communicate.

**

You ate, you slept, and you prayed.

You read, you wrote, and you meditated.

Your faith and dreams escaped the bars.

Your perseverance opened up a path.

**

I read, and read, and let the words sink.

I breathed in and out and let my thoughts run.

Life is but a jailbreaking journey,

that some find the way while others get caught.

**

I eat, I sleep, and I walk in this new perspective.

I humble myself to see the harsh reality of life.

I think of your long journey to freedom

and carry your book as I trot along mine.