An Atheist Prayer

What a terrible waste of precious life,

to live in abstinence and sacrifice

to a god that never really shows his face

and whose expected grace is never truly realised.

What a terrible sin it is to dream,

of purity and sacred scheme in death,

whilst every hue of precious breath

 leaves traces of a life that's squandered.

Wasted on what shall never truly be.

Is it wrong to feel that I am worthy

and through myself find sense and peace?

From depths of mire and scum and scurvy

find a way to stem and cease the torment of my conscience.

I will not seek what I cannot find.

Doing so will only make me blind or blinkered,

searching for a ghost whose existence is tenuous at most

and futile in a deadly tempest sea.

So you go with your god and pray, for I...

I will only ever have to answer to me.