WEBVTT

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And so this poem is
for Rojai Fentress,

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who's incarcerated in the
Augusta Correctional Center,

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which is an interesting tale.

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If you go on the
Innocence Project website,

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you can read his story.

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It's really a--

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I mean, it's like an insane
tale of how they can just--

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the system can just like
really do unjustice to someone

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and keep them detained for
over 20 years over something

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that they just didn't do.

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So I was inspired after reading
his story to write this piece.

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It's called "289-128 Animals."

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And it begins with
an epigraph by Rojai.

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He says, "The only thing less
than a nigga is a prisoner,

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the convicted, the guilty."

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"A heat wave envelops
the mid-Atlantic abnormal

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like the notion of prison.

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Outside and
unrelenting centigrade

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makes the housing
unit oven bake.

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Sales are jam packed
with the guilty who play

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it out, though very innocent.

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Seven sounded better
than 25 straight.

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For more than a few
consecutive days,

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there is a spell cast
over the complex.

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A 5-inch fan oscillates
the aroma of urine

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from the toilet bowl,
and it's jungle like.

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Here grown men and
young boys blend,

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each inmate's
sadness compounded.

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No shade, nowhere to hide.

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And running would get that
ass shot at the razor fence.

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Dangling in blood
so you sit, suffer,

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while asking, is this
how the story ends?"

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