By prison is the prisoner defined;

by all the world at once he is appraised,

and by himself; no matter how refined

and stoic and contrite, he is disgraced.

By blood the sentence is announced at birth;

the form and features forge the cruelest chain,

the mark and measure of one's wanting worth,

the dearth of pleasure prohesying pain –

it is the ugliest of sin,

the porcelain circular soul that shines within

eclipsed by blemishes of the plastic skin.

-Alistair "Hale" Sauterne