Your eyes are turning away.

"Brick Study"

2010

There's an immediate silence along the wall. Mouths painted over with a sickening yellow with grooves forever chaining them down. Like a masquerade, they hide from the burning Sun.

But, it's not really a masquerade, is it?

The silent bricks long to be bricks outside of this prison. They are the lucky ones, they are the survivors of this genocide. Bricks of natural and unnatural, their face has a story to tell.

An array of dark maroons and reds. A purplish red to almost pink. A few look yellow. maybe those are the most recent escapees. Their faces are worn and tired, hiding their past in this mundane life on the inside.

Eyes are hardly drawn to this spectacle. The Sun is happy for them, but the sufferers are silent, in refusal to tell their story for their imprisonment.

A flag eerily stands in a fake stance of respect.

Aren't you supposed to be protecting life, love and liberty?


The bricks want to lash out to bring anarchy to the innocent room they were forced to build. The flag is a betrayer. A traitor.

But, it's only a symbol.


The flag crashes to the floor. The prisoners rejoice and then survivors heave a sigh. The flag weeps as it realizes the gruesome past it helped create, the once prisoners cry freedom.

And for once, one can claim victory.