I have to go away
to slough off this blemished skin
and scrape my soul
raw in privacy,
for sins of the flesh
should not be bathed but scourged,
until this impious peel
is stripped of its flawed markings.
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I must slide away
or slither far from the cover
of concealed shame,
and in the open grate myself
against abrasive censure
until self-scoured I re-emerge
to start another life.
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To live again without your love,
though, is to imitate Creation
in a second fruitless facsimile
of a barren Godless Eden.
If I have sinned by loving you,
then, like those first sinners, expelled
I must expiate until eternity;
I too have to go away.
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[Unpublished] |
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