Here I am, confined to a space designed to erase the last traces of humanity remaining after the war over my sanity. The dark walls stare at me, reeking of the past torture that has been inflicted upon the minds of men.
It’s cold in this concrete cage, and I’m not only speaking about the temperature. I’m speaking about the temperament of overseers overseeing my existence. The ones who label my proud display of Black manhood as resistance to the systematic annihilation of the divine nature of I-Self-Lord-And-Master.
I refuse to let you master me. So this torture that you disguise as punishment — and use as a tool to break the spirits of men, who fall victim to inflicting pain upon self by wrapping a sheet around their neck in hopes that it will help — this torture will only make me stronger! Strong like the smell of urine seeping out of the pores of the metal toilet a foot away from my head which rests on a cold slab of bricks.
Some say it’s hell on earth, yet still it gets worse. In the middle of the night when we lay motionless, trying to ignore the rumbling hunger pains eating away at our flesh, every breath feels like a slow death. The war rages on, yet we remain strong, finding salvation in our refusal to let them break us, but every passing day eats away at our soul. In my mind, I keep thinking: I can’t wait to get out of the hole.