Darwin breaks stealthily outside my narrow, vertical window,

A dark turquoise betraying light, towards the horizon,’

Redundant orange prison lights, sweep across the landscape,

Like luminous pearls cast asunder,

Give the impression of a grandeur city.

Uniform concertina razor wire atop chain link fences

And concert walls.

Haunting abandoned guard towers,

Down secured by electric fences,

Remind me it is not.

Even in my forty decade

With an underlying ugliness, a memory.

On cue, a bird flies overhead

Flapping sailing majestically towards the horizon of light

Symbolic of my soul

Reminding me that I have ultimately overcome

The image assaults my hard won inner equilibrium

That have escaped-myself

The lights, the razors, the towers, were me:

My eyes, my claws my stature.

I was in a prison of the self.

With my poor decisions my old habits and emotions,

Betraying me, wedding me to misery, my eyes refusing to see

My claws clinging refusing to let go of the old me.

But behold my soul,

The subject of fate, it’s amusement,

Speaking the language of majestic flight,

Congratulatory

That I have prevailed over the most persistent foe:

That I have conquered me!

That there are no outer prisons, only inner ones.

That all prisons are illusions.

That we can conquer the self.

That we can soar forever and ever over the horizon,

If we so desire.

Eva Conteraz #C45857

a book study of the non-profit operation Getting out by Going In (GOGI)