Iron Bars

Iron bars forever separate
Me from the others who look the way I do
They are not like me
They live in places of light and warmth
Where families sit together in
Haphazard patterns they carelessly
Wear for a single event
Only mine had hardened into
Intolerable ice
Replayed nightly for the entertainment
Of a lucky few
Who enjoy the squirming misery of the weak
Iron bars that hurt my fingers
As I grip tightly the invisible lines that
Keep me out of the bosom of social warmth
That comes of joining in a circle of dance or
Faith, a veritable club of belonging
I cannot master because I cannot see
The way to having faith
Iron bars can suck that kind of faith from
A person's heart so that even a person who
Wonders about God can be fooled into
Thinking that nothing has meaning or that
People are not rainbows
But they are