It’s time, my love.

 

For the longest time, I didn’t know what to tell you.

But now, suddenly, everything has fallen into place.

Words that were locked deep within my soul,

fettered for what felt like a lifetime,

are suddenly floating free –

as free as I am.

 

~~~

 

For all those long, lonely years,

I was surrounded on all sides

by towering walls of stone.

 

How ironic.

 

Whenever you fought with me,

those were the accusations

you would hurl in my direction –

that I was as cold as ice,

as unyielding as stone.

 

How perfect that I should pay this penalty,

this penance for a crime I didn’t commit,

surrounded by cold, unyielding stone.

 

I saw how those walls of stone shaped the lives of others.

I saw how the walls sapped their spirit.

I saw how the walls eroded their will to live.

 

I resolved never to succumb.

 

So I scoured the exercise yard for stones –

limestone, soapstone, alabaster –

and I carved them into chess pieces.

 

I shaped those stones into submission.

 

I held them in my hands,

felt them mould themselves to my will,

and wondered why you could not.

 

Not that I ever wanted you to be subservient.

 

I loved you just as you were –

filled with fire, filled with passion,

filled with an overwhelming zest for life.

 

I envied you.

You were everything I could never be.

It was enough just to be with you,

to bask in the warmth of that fire.

 

At least, it was enough for me.

 

I may have appeared cold and unyielding,

but my impassive facade played me false.

 

Whenever I looked at you,

whenever I worshipped your beauty and your spirit,

volcanic lakes ignited deep within my soul.

 

In my heart, I was never cold, my love.

I just lacked the language to tell you.

 

This, and this alone,

has been my chief regret.

 

~~~

 

I entered Shawshank Prison condemned as a murderer –

a cold-blooded, remorseless wife-killer.

 

I was surrounded on all sides

by men who understood how it felt to kill.

 

But the greatest killer lying in wait for me

within those threatening stone walls

was hopelessness.

 

I watched it eat away men’s souls like leprosy.

 

I watched it destroy the life

of a harmless, worn-down,

institutionalised man.

 

I resolved never to succumb.

 

~~~

 

One day, I locked myself in a room

with a Mozart LP and a microphone

and set up a surreptitious broadcast.

 

Two sopranos poured liquid beauty into the skies.

They sounded like the voice of God.

 

Each flourish, each cadenza,

spoke to us of music, literature, art,

a life of purpose and dignity

beyond our meaningless existence.

 

For that brief moment in time,

those stone walls vanished.

 

In that glorious moment,

although my escape still lay in the future,

I tasted liberty.

 

~~~

 

I told my friend that I wanted to live

in a warm place with no memory.

 

I got my wish.

 

I finally feel the ecstasy of release –

release from wrongful imprisonment,

release from hypocrisy and injustice,

release from brutal tyranny.

 

There were times when the beacon of hope

was almost extinguished by hate’s blinding darkness,

but, as the warden once told me,

salvation lay within.

 

I’ve come to understand many things.

 

I’ve come to understand

how our star-crossed union of fire and ice

drove you into the arms of another.

 

I’ve come to understand

how a fatal coincidence robbed you of your life

and imprisoned me for another man’s crime.

 

Understanding has brought release

almost as liberating as freedom itself,

but the greatest release of all

has been acceptance.

 

~~~

 

So now it’s time, my love.

 

It’s time for me to forgive you.

It’s time for me to forgive myself.

 

It’s finally time for me to let you go,

to remember nothing but the blessings you brought me,

to imagine you forever floating free –

as free as I am.