Prisoner

Everyday he gets up and dresses. His breakfast always the same. Rain or shine he leaves his parents house all the same.

He makes the walk everyday at the same time. His schedule never varies. He stops at the edge of the road looking both ways before crossing heeding his mothers words always.
Everyday he finds his way to the picnic table outside the little store. He sits down and his routine continues. Always a smile upon his face. He greets each person with a wave and that infectious smile. His legs too short to reach the pavement they swing happily back and forth like a little child he watches the coming and going of the world.

A glint of excitement in his eyes. For he is not a part of the world around him. He is on the outside looking in. Too him the simplest things will forever be a mystery. He doesn't question it, it is just the way it is.
He doesn't know he is different. If you were to ask him about this he could not tell you. He could not tell you because he is locked inside of a prison. A prison that he was born into and one he will eventually die in. Although he could not tell you this. It's a prison he cannot see nor touch.

He will never experience those things in life that you and I take for granted. He will never feel the touch of his newborn child. He will never know the feeling of driving a car. For him these things are outside his realm.

Like anyone locked up in prison, its this prison that stands in his way. The difference between his prison and that of a normal prison is his is always with him whether he is sitting at his picnic table or being tucked in at night by his mother.
For you see his prison is not one of concrete and steel. It is one of flesh and blood.

He was born with down syndrome.
Looking through the windows of his cell he sees the world around him coming and going. He doesn't see anger, or jealousy, or greed. He doesn't see the way some people treat him badly or stare at him oddly when he smiles and waves. In some respects his prison is also his gift. He forever see's the world through the eye's of a child. He see's the things in the world that we have all forgotten about.