INCOMPLETE

Oddly enough I used to believe
In the old eye-for-an-eye
I too thought justice equals revenge
Until I heard the heavy footsteps
Of an innocent man in the night
Walking about aimlessly in his cell
Waiting to be sent to the gallows in the morning
Would my heart have changed at all
If I'd heard footsteps of a man
Who had committed nine heinous murders
Seven of them who were children
Maybe I would've wanted such savage to die
But even if it's true  he deserved death
There's no way to bring back those lives
We can only hope to correct a life gone wrong
We can only hope to transform him
To bring him back to humanity again
For that is what our progress has all been about
The journey from savagery to civility
In the morning I read the news
The innocent man had been hanged
My heart stopped a moment
And I shuddered at the thought
That that man could have been me
Falsely accused by the self-righteous State
To maintain law and order for apathetic people....