“Hi, Koo! How are you?
Here’s your gruel for today.
Hope you enjoy it!”

It’s like this always,
each day and every night,
slow mental torture.

Does he hate my name?
Thin as a piece of parchment,
infuriating,

I hate his one joke.
He probably knows that, though.
Damn his happy smile.

A political
prisoner gets all the best
incompetent guards.

I think he has me
thinking in five syllables,
then seven, then five.

It’s like it’s his job
to break my mind, spirit, soul
with clever cadence.

Clever! Ha! As if.
I bet he writes them while drunk.
I can do better.

… fat, wet drops splash in
the water in the bucket.
One, two… three, four… five…

What does seventeen
syllables of silence sound
like? I want to know.

Is he in my head?
How does this cerebral box
limit my thinking?