Today you took a life. Your own.

Not literally but figuratively.

I grieve not for you but for myself.

For limited calls.

Shared meals dispensed from vending machines.

A single hug lasting only five seconds.

You said, “I love you, sis.”

What I really want is for you to love yourself.

Not as the convict you believe yourself to be.

But as the man I know you are.

So I am here waiting for your life to begin again.

Continuing to believe, unlike you, that transformation is possible.

Always possible until the end when your life is no more.

Literally.