"Why Feel Shame?"

"Why Feel Shame"?

You told lies when everyone expected

you to rise

and defy a pattern

set in motion so long ago.

It's hard to know

when the transgressions began

and if theirs ever underhanded were planned

out of retaliation against you

because your voice

somehow threatened them.

How much you must have sacrificed

through the most desperate of times

just to save some part of them

when they wanted to

project their own vices onto you.

Jesus dying on the cross for our sins

was the ultimate virtue

and so should you.

Why feel shame

when your aura supposedly cleansed

deceives your ability to reason

and you let this happen

over and over again?

Why feel shame

when orders come down

without their answering your questions?

Knowing how they'll belittle you

tells you they're making you the target

of a jerk-off peep-show

designed to control you.

Looking for the next opportunity?

Before you someone was doing the same

who would fall from grace

trying to hold on

leaving open your next vacancy of shame.

Born into a world

blanketed by the unknown;

looking for absolution in advance of all not foretold

maybe a baptism can unwind our lives

to a utopia unencumbered by the stigma of pain

and the self-inflicted persecution of shame.