is there any
other business?
the drab
judge said
to his
fellow lawful
relics

the room was
silent

good,
we are dismissed
he said

I’m sorry,
a voice said,
but I can’t let us
go without saying
something

the judge let loose
a deep breath from his
nostrils

what is it,
brother?
have you a
concern?

a man,
the voice said,
one that is set to
hang
he is
not
guilty

and how is it
that you know this
brother?

his crime,
the commitment of
emotion,
is not a
crime

how so brother?
have we not seen
what happens when we
feel?

yes I know of the wars,
of the hatred,
of the destruction,
but I say
it is not a
crime!

but it is-
a crime

the room was silent then
the judge and the man
who the voice belonged to
stared at each other

it broke with the voice
not the judge

where would we be without
feeling?

where would we be with
it?

silence
again

we would be animals
without our emotions

are you saying we
aren’t
animals?

yes,
I am saying
we are better than
that

we are man!
we are human!
we have minds!
we have morals!
we are above the rest!
we are the best, the
greatest!

we can be responsible!
we can be trusted!
we can be allowed to feel!
we can love!

the air had long left the room
no one knew what to think
there was hatred and anger
but also denial and questioning
who was right? who was wrong?
what does this challenge mean?

it was the judge,
not the voice,
that spoke this time
first

arrest this man

he is guilty of our
most heinous
crime

and the voice was dragged off
his body desecrated and burned
by men in black masks and sick
smiles

the voice did not die
the man he was fighting for
did not either

the man ran,
to the hills he ran,
on the mountains he
screamed:

I love her
I love her
I love her

he was never caught
he ran about the country
and was heard by ears
and seen by eyes
and his image and his form
would not leave the minds
of the people

yet the corpse of that voice,
living now in a dying man,
still lies in some forgotten
warehouse, decaying and
rotting with worms

that corpse is what happens
to those that think freely
even in this age, of free speech
and free justice we are one
step from a court of logic
that forgets what it means to
love and truly thinks it is a
crime

this all plays within my mind,
the judge myself
the voice myself
the man myself
the message myself
the court myself
the meaning myself
and most of all

the torture
myself