The Little Window

The first rays bring with it
One more dreaded day
It says to me, "The night has passed,
Will you live today?"

When the gavel pounded the hardwood,
And the bench stood firm,
The sentence was declared for life.
A criminal I was termed.

Little did I know then,
A death sentence could've given me life
However few the moments,
They would have sufficed.

Awaiting that final moment now,
I die each hour of the day.
Staring into that ray of light,
Watching the sparrows at play.

Beyond that tiny window,
With the tightly spaced bars
The world struggles to catch up with time
And whizzes by in cars.

"I could lend you some time, you know",
I whisper out in hope
In desperation for a human touch
Through those bars, my hands grope.

The jays continue to mock me,
"We're free! We can fly!
You can no more be like us,
No matter how hard you try."

My heart yearns the impossible,
To be on the other side
The constraints remind me once again,
My time, I'll have to bide.

An instrument of torture it is,
In the disguise of hope,
that innocent looking window, a never-ending kaleidoscope.

A darker hue I now behold,
I am merely time's prey
I heave a sigh of despair again
I lived another day...