Prisoner Poem by Rizwan Saleem

A cage, a dungeon
But not of towers
Or bars that hold
No ball and chains
Nor guards nor wardens
But of remembrance old
A sentence passed with the first kiss
A price paid for that single sight
A prisoner now for life
An age to spend like this

An appeal for freedom
To be rid of this despair
I would break these walls and run
If only I knew where
A forehead now swollen
And marked where I bow
I beseech to which ever god that would harken
To absolve me of this transgression I've done

Sit here all day and fight back the addictions
Of sweet laughter and musky perfume
Of skin heated by a thousand forges of desire
It burned to ashes the bridges of my return


Afraid to close my eyes
I see hers black like obsidian
Wrapped forever in her serpentine embrace
Now condemned to live without
I exhausted the elixir to balm my lonely cries
Shout myself hoarse
That I have been forsaken
I have been left to die
After giving all that could be given
A martyr for a lost cause
A captain lost to the sea
Now my history laid bare to repeat
Every hour to every day to every night
I stand waiting for execution
This fate of mine I could never beat