The
OLD
TESTAMENT

The Book of
ASH

1  This is how you will know to mark the young among men,
    for this is the prayer they pray, again and again.
2  It is these who should be marked and minted into lives worth being spent.
3  These are the words they speak in vain,
"Our father who art in us, tradition be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in me as it is in him.
Give us this day our lovely sins1—those of youth and innocence.
And forgive us our deviance, as we forgive those who differ from us.
And lead us not into similarity, but deliver us from the collective.
For thine is the prison, and the scorn, aimed at abnormal men."2

1:3  1 7 Lovely Sins, Quintessence 1, New Testament
1:3  2 Hope’s Prayer, Quintessence 43, New Testament

The
New
TESTAMENT

The Book of
Quintessence

1  Behold, these are the sins
    for which you shall be told to repent
    and labeled youthful dissidents.
    Embrace these with passion,
    for they are your roots.

LUST
2  Words and beats thump and flow through my mind
    like sex; a primal pulse, an insatiable impulse to untether,
    unleash and loose myself to this primal pull—
    it's this bump then grind with a run and slide,
    I can't decide to which I should surrender:
    let run through my blood and bones, then tickle nerves
    ‘till I stop to serve the worthy verse
    with every pound, inch, thought and thrust,
    each the embodiment of audio lust.

GLUTTONY
3  Words—knowledge—stuffed
    into my ears and eyes
    so I may marinate in ideals:
    eyes and ears oozing
    sugary sweet knowledge of the world
    but not OF the world; all the while
    I’m secretly scorned or pitied by the pitiful masses
    who writhe in apathy and cynicism; spew venom
    at anyone not like them—me—envied and scorned
    as the embodiment of wide-eyed gluttony.

SLOTH
4  Stuffed with knowledge of consumer's prison
    might I wisely dodge the yoke
    and slip into the Soft Slippers of Sloth.
    Shuffling around as the embodiment
    of "decaying moral fabric" just
    to steer clear of the chains. Working to be
    but not a working being, all the while
    sucking satisfaction out of life under guise of sloth—
    not quite tied to the Circle of Lies
    (the ones about Consumption's Prize—20 to 65
    depending on what you buy).

PRIDE
5  I hear: Pride cometh before the fall of high standards.
    So I decide my standards and I are too young to die—
    too young and proud
    to join the crowds with shattered expectations.
    I think: If pride cometh before the fall—
    the fall should happen either way but finds in pride
    its one delay. I pray: for pride to dwell deep inside me.
    I try to swallow but find it lodged in my stomach,
    feeding off me; find it has grown past the point
    where I could shit it out—so full of pride I can't eat
    yet mysteriously nourished; my standards and I, somehow
    thriving off pride alone. All the while I’ll be vilified
    for having the gall not to let my dreams die, as if
    this mass of pride was mistaken for a second gall-bladder
    in a world where extra organs and too much gall
    both call for consequences.

ANGER
6  I'll join in with the might of youth
    to fly the flag of feral dissidents; spewing
    satire and dissatisfaction while watching
    the Great Inundation: 40 years of
    days and nights under cardboard skies
    raining fluorescent light. Seethe anger
    and disgust for "the way things are"
    out of some sliver of hope that these ills
    might subside before I dive in
    under glowing lights (which, by the way,
    are only good for growing debt and death.)

GREED
7  Sweet and innocent—still inoculated
    against the ways of the world:
    chasing the dream-job of freedom
    with greed and hope, too naive to realize
    it's all a joke—a wolf in sheep's disguise.
    I'm free, of course, to take responsibility
    and forsake the right to flee
    ‘till after sixty-five, when most of life
    has passed me by. Despite the joke,
    still sweet and innocent, awash
    in too much greed to ‘lease wants for needs—
    hunting freedom with hungry eyes,
    hoping it hides not, under guise.

ENVY
8  Green with inexperience and envy:
    Enough of one not to know
    life isn't like the movies
    and too much of the other not to covet the clean,
    happy endings that trail off to the sunset.
    Absolutely verdant with the youth and life
    implied in both the former:
    radiant with the crisp, rich green
    of all the easy money movies bring this way;
    pushing my publics to mirror this envy,
    jealous I've yet to go green
    with life—that specific shade we grow
    after the fire of youth has burned through
    all the passion, hope and love we care to lose,
    leaving the Bitter Ash of Ire loose to suck the sunshine
    out of life and dye its greenhorns blue.