Why Not?

  

Why don't you just take what you want, when you want it? Even when it doesn't belong to you or it would hurt someone else?

Well...it's because that's wrong...isn't it? It's selfish and immoral. Even if you're an impulsive sort, like me, who generally does as they please and doesn't worry too much what others think...you have an internal 'halt' button when your actions would cause someone harm... So who do you reckon put that there? Were you born with morals? Or did your parents teach them to you? And what could possibly make you lose them altogether? 

There are definitely people who don't have limits, and who will just take what they want...regardless of the consequences. So, how are those people made? ...And what is it like to be one of them?

This poem was inspired by a Leeds Savage Club writers' task, which specified we should write about something rising from the ashes, a rebirth, or a resurrection. I wanted to explore an event or situation wherein, a person reaches dizzying heights of disgrace, and, due to touching the gutter, rises to live a life 'free' and unaffected by moral judgement...living then, by the new law of the Phoenix -

 

New Law of the Phoenix

So,
go right ahead –
pull me from the gutter
and lay me to rest;
- God knows where I belong.

Certainly not in the realms
of the strong, for I crawl
more than I walk;
I have an ever-crimson
mark
of shame
upon my head…

…it’s something I picked up in
your bed, no earthly doubt
about that.

But listen, sly, beautiful rat,
shut your mouth whilst I
hold court…
for I’ve always been
the smouldering sort…low burn
‘til the kindling ignites;
and there’s no stopping
a stalactite, once
it starts to grow.

So let’s
take
this
slow and win the race,
just like they said…
…and things will come,
true enough, I bet,
as a Phoenix
rising
from the dirt;
a blaze to feed my
insatiable thirst to feel
something more,

something beyond these
unwritten laws of
minding my hands.

Why should I not
have
what I can?
And what wants me back?
Why should we not rise from the ash
of devastation
we know we will cause,
flying a flag for something more
than the children we are:
afraid to fall.