Self, justified

I pray not to anyone, but myself,

I bow down to none, but my conscience.

I stand sans morals, outcast, abject

My hand at work, my brain at rest.

Debauch, I turn; to love, I forget

Mechanically to and fro, my limb vibrates

Organ I fondle, orgasm I seek,

Eyes half-closed; of malice, I reek.

The hour of love has long since passed,

The draught of pure emotion, flushed,

Still, my inertia-struck, addicted muscle,

Conforming to nothing, keeps up the jostle.

Still, I do what I do not without sanction,

What inner broodings be when pure is action?

Self-infliction, anyway, is but no crime,

Who, pray, except in thought, do I malign? 

Does clandestine thought add up to more

Than visible, palpable acts of offense?

Doesn’t outward goodness demand corruption

of innards and thoughts and mental abomination?

A question to all who shirk with deprecation,

Isn’t life all about dark, veiled obsessions?

Don’t all of us, inside our scaly shells,

Mask long-forgotten relics of our shady selves?