Hungry Ghosts, etc.

I wish sometimes it were appealing to hold myself to
lower standards, who can blame those who do?

Am I really so pious? Is what I submit to even piety?
I quit porn, but porn does not quit me, us.

The landscape I inhabit and traverse is built
of it. Dare I remove the fraud facade?

Pent-up steam screams through the canals of my
mind as I realize this necessity of masking.

Phony if I cave and stoop to the level of Joe and
company. Cowardly if I express and rile, then placate

I am to be capable of deluding myself into
acceptance of a role as a piece of shit,

continue to witness them flourish while those who
exude pureness of heart take the leftovers like champs.

Some very seldom must practice repression in any sense.
Clearly this, a great appeal to embodying oppressor.

Right about now it appears that one either owns
the plantation, or works on it.

I hold some interest in it myself but have been
selling shares and so, it remains only natural for me

to keep the friends close and enemies closer.
Nature appears to bring me much shame.

It follows, that my conflicted psyche seeks
mind-numbing escapes. The dope hits must come

from somewhere when the head and the heart
misalign… One of those universal laws at play.

What are your vices then? I am asked after sharing
my departure from the world of daily druggin

I respond with ‘the ones which remain’,
frequently lost in my drone device - titillation nation.

It is stupendously clear, that the fewer the vices, the
lesser the imprisonment of the conscience - now free to haunt.

Clearly, we are in need of help, when no bandwidth,
locus of focus remains for accountability to occupy,

when it becomes a rare treat to observe the
conscience of another roaming free.

Whatever ‘yourself’ is, stares back at you when
you cut the screen off. Wait not until complete absence

of beauty, to face the you who cannot be rid of. I know an
abundance of people who have decided it is already too late.

God, grant me the strength to put mine on display
more regularly - we are in great need of a collective haunting.