You see the prison wall and the wall is high and the high is the point. The prison wall is not like other walls. Other walls divide. The prison wall contains. The prison wall wraps around the building and the wrapping is the sentence. The wall is the sentence made physical. The wall is the judge's words turned into stone and the stone is thirty feet tall and the thirty feet is the distance between the prisoner and the world and the world is on the other side doing what the world does which is moving. The world moves. The prisoner does not. The prison wall is the machine that stops your motion and the stopping of your motion is the punishment.

Jackson State Prison in Michigan had walls thirty feet tall and inside those walls they held John Sinclair for two and a half years for two joints of marijuana and the two joints were the crime and the crime was ten years and the ten years was the wall. Sinclair looked at the wall every day for nine hundred and seven days. The wall at Jackson was limestone and the limestone was quarried by prisoners and the quarrying by prisoners means the prisoners built their own wall and the building of your own wall is the cruelty that the system does not acknowledge. The wall at Jackson held Sinclair until John Lennon played a concert and fifteen thousand people sang and the singing shook the wall and three days later the wall opened. The wall opened because the music was louder than the stone.

Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia opened in eighteen twenty nine and the walls were designed to inspire penitence and the penitence was the point because the penitentiary was named for penitence. The Quakers built Eastern State because the Quakers believed that silence would reform the soul and the silence required walls. Thick walls. The walls at Eastern State were twelve feet thick at the base and the twelve feet thick meant you could not hear the outside and the not hearing the outside was the solitude and the solitude was the punishment dressed as redemption. Al Capone was in Eastern State and Capone could not climb the walls and Capone could not tunnel through the walls and Capone did his time because the walls won. The walls always win. Eventually someone gets out. But the walls win every day they hold you.

The Berlin Wall was a prison wall built around a city and the city was the cell and the cell held three and a half million people and the three and a half million people were the inmates of a country that called itself democratic. The wall went up on August thirteenth nineteen sixty one and the going up took one night because tyranny works fast. The wall came down on November ninth nineteen eighty nine and the coming down was the people and the people had hammers and the hammers were the verdict. Twenty eight years. The wall stood for twenty eight years. One hundred and forty people died trying to cross it. The prison wall around Berlin was the largest prison wall ever built and the largest prison wall ever built proved that you can wall in a city but you cannot wall in an idea and the idea was freedom and freedom does not need a door. Freedom makes its own door. With a hammer.

You drive past the prison on the highway and the wall is visible from the road and the visible from the road is the warning. The prison wall warns the driver. The prison wall says this is what happens. The prison wall is the city's threat made architectural. Every city has a prison wall somewhere and the somewhere is usually on the edge because the city does not want to look at the wall and the not wanting to look is the shame. The prison wall is the city's shame made visible. The city built the wall. The city fills the wall. The city does not want to see the wall. The prison wall at night is lit by floodlights and the floodlights make the wall glow and the glowing wall at night is the most terrifying light in any city. Not the neon. Not the billboard. The floodlit prison wall. The wall that glows so that no one in the dark can reach it without being seen. The wall that watches. The wall that holds. The wall.