Life Without Parole

A guy I knew when I was nine and he was seventeen talked me into skipping school one warm September day! He actually helped me write the note, excusing me from class, and really good at doing so - he’d helped with what to say. “Tommy’s got a real bad cold,” the tiny lie began, “and we’re convinced it’s prob’ly best that he stay home today.” It wound up being the afternoon that helped me understand just how very easily kids my age are - led astray. This boy had sneaked his father’s car, and - running low on fuel - ducked into a station and began to fill the tank. Having not the least idea of what he planned to do - and him believing doing so was no more than a prank - Burning rubber all the way to back out on the road...racing off without a stop inside to pay his bill... I was more than terrified to think of what he’d done, and knew - despite his doing so was done against my will - That, if the law caught up with us, I would be suspected of having helped him perpetrate his unexpected crime, And thus was sparked the wayward life that has me here today, led astray and paying for my sins by...doing time! Warned by both my parents that the road I chose to take often leads to prison, I ignored their sage advice, And having tasted, as a child, intoxicating thrills...having felt the danger in the - rolling of the dice… Being chased for what I’d done - forced to never rest - and hiding out to dodge the law was what my life became, And now, at only twenty-one, I’ve lost my chance at ‘Life’ for what I’d thought, at nine years old, a wild addictive game! Life without parole is what I got for what I did, and, being honest, is, in fact, a proper price to pay For wrongly taking someone’s life, despite my victim being the one I hold responsible for leading me astray.