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A day in the Life of Oscar Wilde

I am sitting her alone, remembering how wonderful it once was to gaze from my study window and see the sky. It is cold and dark in this cell and the smell that reaches my nostrils is offensive to me, although I fear that I am the cause. My stockings are grey for want of washing and my skin cries out to feel the cool movement of air. I have nothing to occupy my hands or my brain except memories.

                I believe that today is the anniversary of my birth: the 16th October 1854. Now, the year is 1897 so I must be aged 43 years and feeling the weight of every one of them. Bold and brash have I been but never to my knowledge was I ever brazen or crude: always a lover of beauty and yet, here I fester, imprisoned behind these dank walls for the crime of believing that men are as beautiful as women and acting upon it.

                How they loved me once, those fickle masses: how they welcomed my plays and my Irish wit. How many years will pass, I wonder before a man can live his life without interference or judgement from faceless bureaucrats who dictate who we may love and who we may not. Life can be cruel and life in gaol even more so. Today I shall ponder on this and maybe write a ballad or two. I will tell of the misery I suffer and more: I will tell of the wretchedness of things I have witnessed: the story of the young man who was hung for cutting his wife’s throat. One would wish to know why. And this ballad: I think I shall call it: ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol.’