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This pandemic has us all living in a bad dilemma. 
We fight to hold on to the life that God has given us, 
trying to remember the past dates as so many lives pass 
at a fast rate.

No more excuses about not having time 
to contemplate; no more looking past the little things 
we take for granted and throw away.

A handshake 
is a distant place and a smile can fill up a large space. 

A mask is now our face and only the eyes of a stranger 
can tell you how they feel today.

A moment suspends 
us in this time and space. The world’s fate, the world pains 
and itches. Let us give thanks, let us pray for another way. 

The air we breathe, together we believe, together we need 
the faith and love that’s as strong as a mustard seed. 
We all have a part.

A mask symbolizes our art, colored 
and decorated; this is nothing we anticipated. Streets 
are vacated.

The stimulus is a means to vindicate 
the sins of a crooked government that has left us all 
frustrated. The Capitol overtaken by Caucasian demons-trators while minorities get castrated. The futile American way. 

This is what the white man say: make America great, but 
America is hate. Staring in the mirror at its own face, a thief 
in the night, reminds us all that America will always be white.

Disclaimer: The views in this article are those of the author. Prison Journalism Project has verified the writer’s identity and basic facts such as the names of institutions mentioned.

Desmond Williams is a writer incarcerated in Michigan.