The Offender

Several years ago, this voice cried out in agony in my imagination. I wrote down what he said.

The Offender

Let me out, let me out out out out!
A chemical reaction, that’s me.
Why can’t I face it?
I don’t want to be a silly romantic.
There is no transcendence, O my soul!
The face of my beloved is a skull
Wrapped in rubbery skin
And containing a pair of eyes: blue.

I am not a me, I am an it.
There is no measure to this universe,
This trackless empty wasted space
Of men who millions together struggle as before for:
Item one, food. Item two, reproduction.

Once, I thought – I am ashamed of it! – I thought
That love was… something.
Radiance, or rightness.
And now I have: item one, a body.
Item two, another body.
Item three, a collision of bodies resulting in sensations.

Who is there to let me out? – No one.
It is all chaos, for all things are from chaos,
Are in chaos, and are for chaos.
I am then: item one, so many pounds of quivering flesh.
Item two, so many nerve endings.
Item three, a mind, able to know nothing.
Item four, a something – I used to call it “soul”
Signifying nothing.

Why does it still wail?
Death is no change
Only gloomier fire, more lack of light.
And yet it has: item one, unease.
Item two, apprehension.
Item three, fear.
Item four, terror.
Item five, madness.

Oh God! Why does it still call for God?
How can it still return to that?
It snivels, the coward.
How like a mirror it is, bent on itself
And there is nothing there
Reflecting nothing but itself
And itself a nothing bent on
Reflecting itself!
It is only: item one, mass in kilograms.
Item two, some percent water.
Item three, an object in motion.
Item four, a source of carbon dioxide.
Item five, matter taking up space in four dimensions.
Item six, a collection of atoms.

It has no purpose.
Let it eat, slap, rage, kill, betray, lie,
Fail, spurn, spoil,
Be ill, be crass, be cruel, be dead, be damned!
No one to damn it.
Oh, will no one let me out!

Let it out of what?
Save me! Save me!
Save it from what?
From damnation! I have offended!
No one to damn, no one to be offended.
But I am damned!
How does it know it is damned?

How – O my soul!
I did not see a soul in my beloved’s eyes.
I did not give thanks for food;
I did not honor holy love.
I pleased my flesh;
I seared my nerves with sensation;
I refused to know truth;
I sinned in my soul.
I did not learn from my unease;
I was not driven to question my apprehension,
I did not search out my fear;
I repented nothing in my terror,
I ran mad, responsible for it.
I measured mass, percent, motion,
Source, space, and number of atoms
Without asking – what the purpose?
All this I have done, which was one thing:
Offense, offense!

And I cannot bear it.