If there is ever held a trial in a court of justice 

To punish the one who stabbed humanity in the eye,

don't go looking for any monster of extraordinary malice. 

Look my way, for the hideous wrongdoer is I.

 

Rip the clothes off my back and kick me down

Spit in my eye and then hand me the flog,

Because I alone deserve to wear the crown

of the cowardly, hypocritical, whimpering dog.

 

The first whiplash will be for that young boy I see

every day out in the streets panhandling for a fix.

I hasten my step, ignore the guilt and let it be;

mumbling vaguely about "my cross, my poison, my trips".

 

The second whiplash will be for that madman

that I once left bereft and shivering in the rain 

I know well of lunacy yet I looked away once again

God help me, I cannot stand the sight of pain...

 

The third whiplash will be for all the shunned

the lost I didn't guide, the senile whose hand I didn't hold

when my punishment is over, hopefully I'll be stunned

so numb from the pain that maybe I won't feel the cold.

 

The fourth bloodspilling, skin-tearing beating 

will be lashed for the day that it all got so easy.

I hardened; compassion drop by drop depleting 

I joined the choir of: "Out of my way, I'm busy."

 

And the final excruciating devastating whiplashes

I shall happily suffer for trying to learn

to shut my eyes as to shield them from the ashes

Of the humanity that I helped burn.