Toxic Taboos

I was quite young when I first learned
how the mechanics of taboo worked,
the crudity with which they stopped
open cruelty, and crudity.

Taboo meant that with no words
for an action the action never happened,
since the thought behind the action
could not be imagined,
or so the theory ran.....

Having no language to think
neutered the banned action,
along with neutering the idea
of ideas being in any way abstract.

The moral life was good actions
done without prompt or thought,
lest thought lead to choice
and choice lead to error.

We were meant to be moral robots.

The older I got the more I found the reverse
that we were not robots and we were not moral,
as I became aware of how dismissively
adults listened to children and talked children
down as if they never took anything in. 

I also learned how children
could be malicious and selfish
with an ease more consummate
than could be taken in at face value
by selfless children like me,
who were more selfless than they seemed.

When selflessness was said to be a virtue,
my 'modesty' came from having no personal space. 

In blind obedience I went where I was told,
into where harmful actions followed
as men (it was always men) directed me
for their own financial ends and walked,
and talked, all over me in their indifference.

And I was lost for words to describe it.