He asked me

if I loved him for him

or for his allegiance to the revolution.

I said, I never had a chance to know you

like a woman knows the man she loves:

how your back arches when I touch your spot;

how you respond to a person who doesn’t have

the power of life and death over you;

even the contours of your smile;

but the ability of your soul to fly free

touches me where I need to be touched.

The words you send me

has people describing me as beautiful.

What does that tell you?

But still, I made mistakes:

offered inappropriate advice,

challenged the guards and rules

to the point where we were denied visits

for six months or more.

I assumed…wrongly

that me, doing half your time with you,

out weighed my mistakes.

I forgot you were inside.

and I was still outside

And when you were, finally, outside

I felt like I was inside.

Imprisoned by my mistakes

unable to make it through the wire.

And you weren’t me, willing to do the time

willing to understand my prison.

I languished in my emotional cell

tolerating your transgressions

until the birth of our son.

The removal of placenta,

the new life that slept nightly

in the crook of my arm,

reminded me I was a maroon

and I began plotting my escape.