Santonio D. Murff
Issue No. 21 • Spring 2020
I am a prisoner.
I am dead to the world.
I am nothing.
A nobody.
I have neither a name,
nor a voice.
I am 773394.
That's it.
That's all.
To me, there is no more….
Until, that is, I pick up a pen.
Then, I am alive!
I am freer than I've ever been!
My voice is restored!
My passion ignites!
EXPLODES!
FLOWS like hot lava across the globe!.
My fantasies are fulfilled!
Dreams become real!
The walls fall!
I shed my shackles and chains!
Forget my problems and pains!
I travel far and wide!
The world laughs with me!
Together we cry!
Adorned in the whole armor of God,
sinners near and far,
tackle and take on:
inequities, injustices, evils that be!
To bring about justice, manifest peace!
"LIGHTS OUT!"
As I die once more, return to the dark,
I sing no songs of sorrow, have no heavy heart.
I put away my righteous sword,
slip into slumber, that little death,
satiated and spent, with the tiniest of grins.
Tomorrow, I know,
The writer will be reborn again....
Santonio Murff is a multi-award winner in the PEN America Prison Writing Awards from Shreveport, Louisiana. His first novel, The San-Man: 7 Days of Hell, will be published by Righteous Publications, and his movie script "Cobra's Cross" has received multiple awards.