If you accept my discontent and not just my intemperance,
My "rages" and "counterfeit glooms,"
Our life would run its similitude course;
Hard silence, tedious dances, and mutual upbraidings.
If you accept
My "profane" right to be exempt from the rules of life-
Unfaithful to myself-
Our life would run its undaunted course;
No apologies, no reconciliations, or worse, feigned submissions,
A taste of vengeance.
If you accept my exile from myself and not just my abortive life,
Our life would run its un-melodious course,
If you accept my travels of sin proceeded with harm to
All-most to myself-reinventing death as endless punishment,
Fiercer by despair,
Our life would run its corrosive course, as not to secure
Any expiable hate from roughest tongues,
Proved pernicious.

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of Rags of My Soul