When Will Solitary Confinement End?

I sit in Solitary Confinement,

Monitored and evaluated,

Psychologically tested,

Tortured in more ways than I care

to remember or burden you with,

With hopes I´d crack and beg,

Beg to be let out of this torturous place

And crack, losing the bit of sanity I have left

Like so many others before me and so many others

Yet to fall, fall prey to the prison´s administrators,

To their countless of tactical torturous games they play.

I am but one of a few hundred who still stand strong,

Fighting to survive, accumulating deep embedded scars

With each passing day, learning to be resilient to all

That´s thrown and piled up against me

In such a difficult, miserable place.

Lonely and deprived of so much I sit in Solitary Confinement.

Beyond desperate for a helping hand, for something,

Someone, for a movement, for human rights lawyers

And all the advocates out there to put an end

To this heinous practice of Solitary Confinement

And take me away from this place with my dignity intact.

I just hope it´s soon before many more fall prey

And lose themselves in this dungeon of hell and misery

That´s been in place for far too long.

What will it take before you realize that time is essential

To one´s sanity within these circumstances,

To one´s self-respect and humanity.

What will it take to end Solitary Confinement?

Prisoner´s Survival Tactics

Living in a world full of coldness

I couldn´t help but detach myself

From the world outside these walls

As I stand guard and hard

Clenching unto the remaining scraps of my being

Within my balled up fist

Losing all sense of what is right or wrong

Fighting countless of demons,

Being demoralized and epitomized,

Never forgetting to diminish

The consequences of me being chained. 

So, I won´t unleash all my pinned up venomous rage

On the caring few, who still stay true…

Prisons made an animal out of me

At the brink of losing my sanity,

At the brink of losing my stability

At the brink…at the brink…

Hanging on the edge off of a loosely brick.

Survival, truth be told

Is what this is for.

It´s what we´re all fighting for

In this cold prison world.

So, when my hand clenches this pen

Scribbling down whatever comes to my head

What you´re getting is another side of me

The one that can´t be shown here

In this cold, cold world

Where being compassionate and kind

Is a scent of weakness

To the hungry pack of wolves

That reside within this cold, cold world.

Happy Holidays

When we return to our ancient land

Quando regresemos a nuestra antigua tierra

Que nunca conocimos

Y platiquemos de todas esas cosas

Que nunca han sucedido

Caminaremos llevando de la mano niños

Que nunca han existido

Escucharemos sus voces y viviremos

Esa vida de la que tanto hablamos

    Y nunca hemos vivido.

            Daisy Zamora

When we return to our ancient land

Which we never knew

And talk about all those things

That have never happened

We will walk holding the hands of children

Who have never existed

We will listen to their voices and we will live

That life which we have spoken of so often

And have never lived. 

                Daisy Zamora

Manifesting the Obstacles

Metal!

Metal fences, metal bars, metal doors, metal bunks,

Metal chains, metal handcuffs, metal stools,

Metal locks, metal sinks and metal toilets

Metal everywhere I look

In everything I touch.

Metal!

Hard, cold, smooth steel,

Strong...and transitional metal. 

Stands solid and shines brilliantly.

Never thought that it would be my life. 

That if you cut me, I´d bleed metal molecules

But it´s true. 

Metal!

It surrounds me, it consumes me!

And with due time, I became as smooth as it is,

As hard as it is and as strong as it is.

Standing solidly. 

In this cold metal steel world of mine,

Hoping to shine brilliantly

And radiate the joys of living 

Despite this life full of metal substances.