Twenty-three hours a day in this cell
Welcome to my own private hell
I pray that God will set me free
My fate is locked without a key

I’m rotting in prison for this crime
Dying in here with nothing but time
Charged with a crime I didn’t commit
An innocent man they will not acquit

I couldn’t afford a fair trial
No one even read my file
In a system of lost souls
Human lives pay the tolls

I scratch a tally on the hard floor
My fingers numb, bloody, and sore
It’s how I know a day has passed
How to tell one day from the last

Guilty until proven innocent
Even sinners get to repent
Just another case for the court
And a stack of paperwork to sort

Stuck here with no end in sight
I’m fighting an unfair fight
Only death will be my way out
What a joke – “reasonable doubt”

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A poem by Jason S. Sullivan, 08-10-20