🔵 By LeShun Smith. Photo by lauragrafie.
25 years ago I received a diagnosis.
I had stage 4 incarceratitis metastasis.
That’s chronic inflammation of the freedom joints,
And it’s pervasive;
Severely limiting my range of motion.
Not just physically,
But my dreams, hopes and…
Emotions frozen in a glacier
In the Arctic Ocean,
Even when the weather breaks,
For me, there’s no coasting.
My rage is encapsulated in an ice block
Like I’m stuck in that phase,
And my animalistic horrors still haunt me,
Because this ice block is also a cage.
Are we on the same page?…
Because I need you to read me clearly.
I never realized life was that precious,
But I miss it dearly.
Just thinking about it gets me all teary.
Got me longing for affection but no one
Can get near me.
Sometimes I wonder… Do my loved ones fear me?
***
I can’t lie though,
This disease has given me perspective.
I discovered I was set aside for
A higher purpose.
Perhaps I was incarcerated
So others can be liberated.
Liberated from a mind fixated
On Crime, scamming people, and abusing time.
Or maybe it’s my job to teach
People to see passed the mind’s mines
Of destruction to a spiritually holistic path.
You know, the path God created
So we avoid His wrath.
Etched in my consciousness is a graph where
I also discovered willful patience.
This is demonstrating your faith with
Productive actions,
Rather than sitting around stressing
And waiting…
For your truth to catch up to reality,
Which has a tendency to retard or distort your mentality,
Leaving you in a heightened state of delusion.
You start worshiping your yesterdays,
And become afraid of your tomorrows,
Because presently you’re losing.
I know this seems confusing
But life is about constantly
Adopting the mindset of your choosing.
Am I making sense?
Incarceratitis can either debilitate me,
Or I could choose radical acceptance.