I am the caretaker, of my own prison.
Driven into my hole, I patrol the corridors
with the authority of a king,
The Crown I wear on my face.
Each and every day I inspect the inner periphery
of my walls,
My peeling
Walls.
Corridor One,
Door One,
Corridor Two,
Door Two,
Corridor Three, Door Three,
Corridor Four,
Door Four.
I check the Fire Alarm.
I check the boiler room (every 10 days)
I check the class-rooms.
My construction is water-tight.
Freedom pervades within these walls,
Away from the unholy gaze of the outside
world.
The outside word had drifted far off into the
diseased distance.
I sleep, eat and think in the office.
It is the control centre of this modest land,
The majority of which I can survey on
CCTV.
I had left my flat a long while ago,
It had become unnecessary,
It was outside.
I now have set sail across these endless seas,
A prisoner of my corridors,
No anchor,
No moorings: just corridors, doubt and Me.
The Slave God.
I slept on an old single bed,
With creaking springs
Dragged out from the debris of the school
store.
It was too short for me,
Fully stretched, my extremities would poke
out at the end.
It dipped in the middle everyday
I would wake with a back ache.
Before breakfast would be the first round I
would make of the building
Corridor One, Door One,
Check.
Tick
Tick the small box.
Corridor Two,
Door Two Check,
And tick the box,
Through the window of door two I could peer
out.
The Thing Outside was always there,
It had arrived out of the darkness of a dream.
As I stared into the infinite void, a shapeless
shadow tumbled forth,
And now it lurks without.
In my corridors it did not exist,
It could not get in.
But I could feel it,
The prodigal beast trying to find it’s way
back home.
I turned away and continued with my round.
