Pretend

Pretending as I have since birth
right up to now, today,
those fun and selfish things I've spun
to get things my own way.

Well, I would always cry and whine
if I was not chastised
and tantrums were my specialty
if wants weren't realized.

As teens, my friends and I would joke.
We'd smoke a cigarette.
We sometimes laughed at other folk,
without the least regret.

The beer I drank had proved me cool.
the drugs, to get me high.
Abortion took a precious life,
deception's selfish lie.

Yet at the top of my own list
were comforts by the score...
from better cars to bigger homes
and oh, so much, much more.

I thought about how good I was
and things that I deserved.
I bragged about the good I'd done
and all the folks I'd served.

I slammed the door on all those things
I'd just as soon forget,
but stubborn guilt had gripped me so
and hadn't left me yet.

Convince myself, I still do try
and fool my closest friend,
but Heaven, though, cannot be fooled
and God does not pretend.

This poem won first place for the July 2014 poetry contest