Cinderblock Mugshots

Every child's dream is to one day

Walk into a cinderblock building

And be forced to take a mugshot

Where you are allowed to smile.

Little girls dream of being princesses

And little boys of being knights,

But at some point in every child's life

They step up,

Step past the threshold of a cinderblock building,

And those little boys and little girls

Become men and women.

They practice day in and day out

For months,

Racing to be the best.

Or at least the best of the worst.

They compete against the master's clipboard

In a test to see whether or not they leave that cinderblock building

With their mugshot in hand.

Competing to hold the key to a death trap.

Children are born into this world from darkness

And for the rest of their lives,

They crave that same darkness.

Fighting desperately from stereotypes at age ten,

To realities at age 16,

They fight to be granted permission

To run that steel death trap down a freeway,

Faster than the speed of light

And the speed of the law.

They fight for the ability to run on wheels

At 85 miles an hour around a surprise curve.

They fight for the ability to dodge bullets,

But in actuality,

The only bullets are the drivers

That are somehow driving faster.

They fight for a test of strength,

A test of mind over matter

A test to see how often you can swerve

Without becoming worse off than the others.

Children start as princesses and knights,

But they are pressured all their lives

Until they become diamonds.

Diamonds hard enough to cut through wind,

And rain,

And air resistance,

But only in their steel death trap.

So they go into that cinder block building

And cross the threshold

Between children and diamonds

And take their mugshot home.