Media: An excerpt from Porridge: A Memoir

Media

We are a bundle of reasons no one will understand,

Ever read, ever question, ever believe.

We are molded by external factors

And false rewards

And we drop our purpose at the feet of the industry,

Because we are stuck in a cave where our successes are objects,

Things and items.

We daydream

As we fight with duende and the voices in our heads.

The voices that drew us out and promised to hold us dearly

And sweetly until we are rocked back to sleep-

Back to hopeless, serving sleep.

We are repressed thoughts and actions

And regrets

And hopes and nightmares that promise to haunt us until the very end.

We are goals and dreams

Locked away in sacred boxes and tucked into the crannies of our blackened souls.

We are cutouts of magazines and popular culture

Desymbolized and taunting our old spirits.

We are selfies and selfish

As we stare at our well chiseled faces

Sculpted by our lord Muloch and his governors.

We are brainless and superficial,

And in love with the terrors of television

And the paradise of elsewhere.

We are naked bodies pressed to men we don’t know

In search of a self that we do.

We are more than garments and diamonds,

And traded green paper.

We are more than images reflected back at us

Of golden women and metal men.

We are more than photographs and false evidence

Of a life well-lived.

We are reasons, and poisons and lies

We will never tell.

Never write, never question, never believe

We are a bundle of reasons.