They live in 8x4 cell
One step next to hell
A closet size cage
To hold in the rage
With no human contact
How does one act?
Most are not innocent
Most won't repent
Now they hardly see the sun
No place left to hit and run
They grew up on the wrong side
Always ready to fight and hide
All face maximum degradation
On the road to lethal injection
Creating ways
Of counting days
There are no more rules to break
What's to dream when you won't wake?
How does it feel?
To order your last meal
Does it seem odd?
That now they turn to God
To free them from their sins
It's here where irony begins
Plenty of tattoos
Yet no clues
How to exercise the brain
And get off that runaway train
Muscles abound
Now all locked down
Wearing hand cuffs a way of life
Yet skilled in making a homemade knife
Lost all sense of wonder
Waiting to hear the thunder
They hardly see the sun
One hour with no place to run
Burying what is left to feel
In a corner surrounded by steel
The march of that last mile
Doesn't take but a short while
With each step a life flashes by
As chains jangle one last cry

Alfred Ramos

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-death-row/