I didn't realise
I didn't know
That I had let the wrong one come home
That my shadow had cheated me
And set foot in my life
Come home to my wife
But it wasn't me
It was a shimmer
Slimmer
But distorted from the time away from home
Hidden behind the facade
Of prison
Emotionally resilient
And hyper vigilant, hard
Cruel really
Lost in the fear
Like my place wasn't mine to fill
So whoever came home
That wasn't me
Whoever was set free
Came home to liberty,
But lacking identity
Integrity and bravery
Still tied into the prison system slavery
It's too easy to say
"Prison made me,"
It didn't
It shamed me
You saved me
In the solitary of just me, myself and I,
It was easy to be caught in a lie
To survive
To feel something
To feel alive
But I didn't
It's like being dead inside
Because you shut down
So you don't drown
If you're in there,
Who you were before,
Doesn't make any sound
Doesn't want to be found,
And then you find yourself laughing,
You find yourself crying,
You find your people,
And they close ranks
And you forge your barriers together
Locked in,
Locked hands,
Locked lives,
To survive
Drive
To the finish line
To hold eachother together
Your family on the inside
The one you take out with you
And hope that when you wake up from the nightmare
There's still that love
And if you're lucky, as I am,
They're them, and you're Fran
And you emerge from the cocoon of incareration
Of reintegration
And you laugh again,
And you find your friends,
And you build you lives,
And you share the reality
Without the hostility
The danger
The suffocation
And you love life fire
With loyalty that will last forever,
Because if you can ride into hell
With the people on the outside and the in,
Loving you,
Holding you together,
Then the devils gate becomes a breeze
And you zoom on by into the vortex
That is real life
And you don't just survive
You thrive
Because these people have kept you alive
And it will always be ride or die
