Black Box

Rapunzel's Alcatraz

I may be the bars

But you are your own jailer.

You rage against me

Tear down the wallpaper

Smash the wooden chairs.

You would choose to drown under rubble

If it meant you could take me with you.

But I am more than the furnishings of your cell.

You have damaged me here

In ways I cannot repair myself

But I am not broken because of it.

I am still the same tower on the shoal

Just as tall.

And you have no power here.

One day

After your sentence is served and you are long gone

There will be a sailor or dreamer or light house keeper

Who sees all the majesty

Of a tower in the middle of the sea.

And they will paint the walls delicately

And move in their own reading chair.

And fill the cracks and chips you left

Because they live here.

And they want to.

I will not be a prison

Any longer.