Thank you, Shaka

There is a man named Shaka
who shot and killed someone
when he was only 19.

Tried, convicted, and unrepentant,
he spent 19 years in prison,
and 7 years in solitary confinement,
alone with his tortured thoughts.

Through Grace,
and the truth he found
in the writings of others,
he was able to discover
that he was the cause
of his own suffering,
and that he had a choice
about who he wanted to become.

I have had an easy life,
free of the horrors he endured,
but I, too, have spent too many years
trapped in the prison of my thoughts,
victim of my own self-induced suffering.

Surely,
having lived a life of privilege,
I can find the strength
to free myself as he did,
and become the person
I was meant to be.

Thank you, Shaka,
for the light you spread!