Cold metal presses against the thin mattress.
There is no pea but he can still feel the springs
It is hard, sharp, jarring, and deeply cutting
He is no princesses and this is no fairytale.

The beast is indifferent, made of concrete.
Barbwire fences mark the difference from
Freedom’s street and the state penitentiary
and he cannot leave this abusive relationship.

They let him go and life was like a candy-coated cabin.
He got himself a job, but kept a lot of bad habits
hopping fences, then breaking into cars,
dating a troubled teenager, and an angry older women.

Head down body laid to rest he did his best
to fall into the deepest sleep in the porcelain tub,
drunkenly stupid, but somebody pulled him out.
He tried to burn himself the same **** night.

An angry apple red thread with a poisonous pointed head
awaits his next big break in mistake
but the price he paid, the things that changed
all came because he smoked some little thing.

It doesn’t take much, in fact any little thing
could take a halfway decent human being
and turn him into to a ward of the State
can take a loving human being and make him hate.

Not all stories end happily ever after.
Not all prisons are left even after
the prisoner is freed, his body may be released.
but the man still flinches,
hardened and tenderized by what he has seen
and what he had to do to make it through
that dark fairytale hell.