Cellmates … Alexandra Niebaum

Hope you’ll kiss my lips with the words you’ll never mean

Casual insincerity Let lies part your lips Keep you parted from me

Cellmates

by Alexandra Niebaum

His is twice the size of mine his four walls reach higher than most birds fly

His has softness and warmth couches and chairs with so many pillows some touch the floor

Mine is drafty and dark The floor is cold and my bed is made of steel

His has color, the sun shines through a glass window almost as big as the walls

Mine has drab, grey walls and the outside world is lined with interrupting bars

His are filled with shiny shackles, carefully he picks one out, wears it, then exchanges it for another

Mine is filled with rusted shackles heavy and long, eating away at my ankles

Mine is locked and so is his I cannot escape or else I should see the world without bars

His is bound to him if he were to leave, it would be gone forever so he does not

Both of us confined from the world, yet I still imagine what it must be like to be as free as a rich man