Passing Go

Light shines through between the bars,
cell is cramped, fighting the fiery tugs of claustrophobia,
a thousand tales my mind does pen
in hopes of erasing memory's ink.

Sitting with a number stenciled on my prison uniform shirt
feeling it such a shameful descent in glory
from the pinnacle where once I stood like a god,
wearing my crown of monopoly dreams,
intoxicated in my lust of fiscal gluttony.

Playing life and souls as a game
striving to have it all,
people being just poker chips
one could gamble away
on my ante to win the pot of gold.

But my passion for capturing
every deed of hearts and land
turned to blindness
about the rules
one is forced to obey.

Smiling in cavalier confidence,
when indicted for my antics in darkness,
so sure my vault of lucre
could buy me freedom
and another trip
around the grid of greed.

Finding out too late
that "do not pass go"
was not just a card to be ignored.