Do What Thou Wilt
A conversation between him and I
When I was young I was told to love you Believe in you Blindly and Unquestioningly Blissfully follow your teachings and every command I wasn’t taught I was told By people who I presumed knew a lot about you People I called my elders Who worshipped your very existence Or lack of if you want to go there People who abided by your teachings And followed your every command Or at least that’s what I thought
The people I describe Hoarded your teachings Kept it to themselves And commanded blind, ignorant followers To do things in your name
I was one of those people Till I decided to pick up your scriptures And decipher your words I read, pondered and digested The archaic language of centuries past Some of your doctrines I agreed with Others seemed ambiguous and to some degree immoral But the words I write today Aren’t about you Their about the people you’ve declared as your prophets The messengers, that preach your gospel Or is it they who’ve declared themselves as worthy to intercede on your behest And not the other way around Again, if you want to go there
I ask, what grants the cleric The powers of Prophethood Is it not books read and knowledge garnered Knowledge that is openly available to all And if anyone may be able to read your books and understand your words Well, their version of it anyways If you want to go there And if it is so that such priesthood is attained by knowledge acquired Then what makes the preacher different from a doctor, an engineer, a teacher Or any other profession that requires reading books to attain knowledge
My quarrel is not with the profession My quarrel is with the status of prophet The ones who communicate and intercede On behalf of the rest of us The ones who claim Only they can speak your language Hear your words And communicate it with the rest of us
The ones who scorn and reject the weak flesh of man Lecture our so-called immoral impieties Whilst turning the other cheek At astronomical atrocities Committed by people who fill up their coffers And plague the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent souls They say, don’t eat this Don’t sleep with that Cover this And by the way most of these rules only apply to women But in any case, if you’re a wealthy generous benefactor Your inhumane policies of human extinction are fine with us
Is it so that these are the people that represent you People who have subjected many to an eternal damnation Because the very nature of their being is condemned by you Or as so they say Or as so they say Or as so they say