Courtroom.

Courtroom…..

Why did you take that man's life

The judge he asked of I

Was cause it he looked at you the wrong way

It that enough for him to die

Did he bump into you in the street

Nearly knock you off your feet

Why did you take that man's life,on a cold Saturday night

What the hell is wrong with you

The judge he asked of I

Is some imagined slight, enough for a man to die

The prison guards surrounded me, as I stood in the dock

Not interested to catch my eye, just watching the courtroom clock

Looking forward to when soon they would be free

I reckon it'll be a long time, before the same can be said of me

The judge held his head in his hands, then looked my way in despair

It's not incarceration you need , he said,but mental health care

It's a mental institution that I am sending you to

In there you will share with others the contents of your soul

With the other inmates, or should I say patients, and the psychiatrists too

We cannot have unstable murderers such as you walking the streets

We have to make it safe, for the elderly, the children and the weak

I looked at my family, across the courtroom hall

His family looked at I, their anger, rage and sadness

Written upon their faces

But did I glimpse, for a brief moment, some compassion and understanding too

For a fellow member of the human race

I took that man's life, on a cold Saturday night

Now I am to be imprisoned and treated for the rest of my life

Goodbye freedom, Goodbye wife

The judge looked my way, as I was taken down

His face contorted in an angry, philosophical, questioning frown

What the hell is wrong with you, is the question I read in his mind

It's the very same question, on many nights, I ask of myself too.