The Ten Commandments of Lust

One:
Lust for fame, beauty, wealth,
possessions, position,
not what matters.

Two:
Lust for the idols and images
you create for yourself, the ones
that all, oddly, look like you.

Three:
Lust to be cool and sound cool,
Oh My God, or because
you have to fill the empty air and
don’t know what else to say.

Four:
Lust to work, and to fill your life with
busy-ness and every good and
bad thing so you don’t have to
think and if you stop the frenzy
of activity you’ll find the
emptiness within and you don’t
want that.

Five:
Lust to forget where you
came from because face it, parents
can be embarrassing and just want to
talk sometimes and your time is more
important and maybe you’ll have a
chance to call next week.

Six:
Lust for anger, revenge, gain,
destruction and death, and
self-obsession, too, because
self-obsession is a kind of
murder.

Seven:
Lust to possess others’
bodies and hearts and souls
because God just
wants you to be happy,
right?

Eight:
Lust for everything you do not
own or possess, and that’s
a lot of stuff to
lust for.

Nine:
Lust to promote yourself or destroy
someone else with a lie or
a rumor or a quick gossip
exchanged in total confidence,
of course, because
that’s how the system works
and the ends are always justified.

Ten:
Lust for everything your neighbor
has or owns because
he’s no better than you and
probably worse and
you deserve it more
anyway; and if you can’t
figure out what to lust for
just pick something.

Obey these commandments;
lust for any and all of these
things.

And I will have to die.


(This post is part of the blog carnival sponsored by Peter Pollock and Bridget Chumbley. To see additional posts on the topic of lust, click here.)