I am a helpless hopeless witness
sitting idle on a courtroom bench
as if in church
kneeling backwards beneath slanted
   stain                         glass
                     light
with my hands clasped tight
and pressed neat against my forehead
but there is
no
one
to pray to when
there is no faith;
I am invisible in the eyes of a clairvoyant god.
My heart beats rough
almost
p
  o
    u
      n
        d
          i
          ­  n
              g
straight out of my chest
to the beat of the grand judge's gavel.
"Guilty,
guilty,
guilty,"
they chant, and
"Selfish,
                selfish,
                          ­    selfish," too.
"We find the defendant cowardly."
They never even put me on the stand.
They will not sentence me to execution--
          for that would be too kindly.
I am destined to a life
of praying for death without parole
and                                     folding
a plethora of pervasive glances
tightly between the
         lines
         on
         my
         palms.
They shoot their looks from
                       all
    different
                                          angle­s,
                      and
even with this accumulation of grayscale smoke above my head,
I
can't
escape
it.
After every much belittled blink
they taunt me with another slice of glass
that scrapes off my skin cells
         one
                 by
                       one
and leaves my body hair in a standing ovation
pulsing with anticipation--
           but they never draw blood. A cruel
and unusual punishment.
At confession I can never find the breath to reveal
the heart I've taped to my chest to keep from f
                                                               ­                a
                                                               ­                l
                                                               ­                l
                                                               ­                i
                                                               ­                n
                                                               ­                g
or the soul in my hands that's been
              crushed
between sweaty fingers.
How can they punish me when I am already a walking jail cell
with skinny white lines for bars on my wrists?
I am to repent until I am no longer human, but here's the thing--
             I never was.
I am much

much

more.