What Is Wickedness?

Well, there are rules. And rules and rules.
And whole populations by the thousands
Or millions who believe that breaking rules

Is wickedness, and punishing rule-breakers
Is righteousness, and the two are distinct
And knowable, never mind inconsistencies.

But I don’t want to wail about all that.
Where would we be without self-righteous
Hypocrisy? Probably up in the trees.

Too bad. But we can’t go back, and why
Blame this one insane and language-laden
Species? Suffering is planetary, minimally,

If not cosmic. Humans did not invent it.
Still, it’s hard to conceive life itself created
Suffering intentionally, and if a good

Conception of wickedness, not just
Suffering, exists, perhaps it would be that
Which inflicts suffering intentionally. That

Which seeks to maximize the suffering
Of one or more living things, whatever
The reason, certainly seems wicked to me,

With or without delight in it, with or without
Hypocrisy. When I have a fantasy in which
Someone wicked suffers for it, I am

Indulging some inner craving of my own
To think wickedly. Where did this arise,
How did this arise in us, in you, in me?

Framed like that, in terms not of suffering
Or rule-breaking but of intentionality,
Wickedness does seem peculiarly us to me.

I would like to be free of this wickedness.
I would like not to wish it on people
Who seem more wicked to me than me.

But is there wickedness in passivity? Some
Would say so, absolutely, but then I sense
A hint of wickedness repressed in those

That object to not joining their cause. When
I sense this is when I am most disheartened
About having been human, even in pretend.

I can’t pretend I don’t want out of this,
That comes from having words for it,
The endless arguing and suffering

Over us and our wickedness. The words
Themselves make the meaning possible
And yet remain oblivious. No words for this.

I wish to become the one who watches
Without being called to the stand, without
Words or records or receipts on demand.

I wish to remain anonymous, unnoticed
When I’m right here behind these windows,
My voice as inhuman as if the wind blows.

And that wish could be called wicked,
A wicked wish, pure wickedness. I know.