realreally

Where am I? I feel like I’m in a courtroom in front of the judge. I listened to her decision, without really hearing it. Not really believing. Something, beyond the verdict, is troubling about this. I have heard this before. Yes. I have definitely heard this before. It must be ten no fifteen years now. I had been serving my sentence, paying my penance and making amends for fifteen years now. And yet, here I am back at the beginning. As if nothing has changed. Nothing has changed? Somebody is blind. The judge looks at me, or through me, as if I was the same man who committed these crimes so many years ago. As if nothing has changed. And in her mind, nothing has. It’s all been for naught. Fifteen years of hard work, crafting change. Putting in the time and working to better myself over and over and over until the change stuck. And I see it. I feel it. I know the change. And yet, the judge doesn’t see it. Can’t feel it. and won’t know it. So I sit, waiting. Fading. Leaving, bit by bit. Shackled to my own choice and yet unable to find the key. I’ve looked for all this time and yet it still eludes me. As I sit the indifference builds around me until it all but consumes me where I sit. Finally. Slowly. I rise, sentence passed and I’m lead back to my cell. To what? Try again? Change more? The door clangs shut and the dark finds me. Fifteen.