Concrete walls,
Concrete floors,
Frosted plastic window panels.
Half a picnic table against the wall.
These walls are white, but if you step into the halls
There’s more scenery than you could imagine.
At one end of the concrete hall there is a calendar painted.
Month by month we count down our days. At the other end
There is a big naked tree, no leaves, sitting atop a hill.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to lay down
In the green grass and to smell the fresh air,
To see the starlight
And catch a couple of fireflies.
Inside here no one is different, we’re all the same.
Sitting inside these walls, playing the waiting game.
Months
Weeks
Days
Hours
Seconds.
(from Stories From the Inside Out, women’s writing 2016