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Innocent As Charged
In ‘96, the gavel cracked like thunder,
Though my hands held no storm.
A verdict etched in iron,
For a crime I never formed.
They saw a shadow—chose me to fit it.
Three blue uniforms spoke like fate:
“Take the fall, son.
This case is bigger than your name.”
That night I ran—not from guilt,
But from the chaos I couldn’t decode.
Police lights bloomed like fireflies,
And I begged the stars for mercy owed.
Each breath a prayer,
Each stride a plea to the heavens.
But my feet couldn’t outrun the truth—
My family needed me present, not legend.
So I turned myself in,
Heart cuffed with trembling pride.
Lost the life I once knew,
To live the one they prescribed.
I went down not for the crime,
But for refusing to vanish.
To stand in stormlight and scream
“I’m not what you brandish!”
Years passed, carving steel into my spine,
Not bitterness, but resolve.
From shattered glass I rose—
Sharper than before, stronger evolved.
And if you ask what broke me,
It wasn’t prison or the blame.
It was watching justice masquerade
With a liar’s flame.
I guess pride goes before one hell of a fall...
But the man who fell
Didn’t stay down at all.
Copyright ©
Michael Fulkerson
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