Artifice in Honesty

Consider this...

This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
-William Carlos Williams

When did we reach the point of forgiveness based on honesty? When the little boy said 'I cannot tell a lie' and confessed to chopping down the cherry tree, that trite story from our grade school history classes (George Washington, for my non-U.S. readers) - what sorry mistake did that place in our value system?

Are we to place more value on honesty than we do morality? Isn't honesty just a sheepish way of saying, 'I got what I wanted, too bad you were in the way at the time.' There is no implied apology. It is just a veiled way of doing as you like with no guilt involved.

All along I've said that I value honesty and truth above all else. In fact, what I value is deep moral standing. If you (You) can look temptation in the face and say...no...my word is more than this. My self-respect is more than this.

Surely there is more than meek honesty and weakness there. Here. Wherever. If I can stand and say this is what I am not, will never be, and I will carry those words for as long as I'm able, it can't be that hard for others?

"I value friendship above all else," just before you sleep with someone who isn't yours. "I like to give things a fair shake with no distraction," and yet still a nonrejection-rejection after picking up with your past. Be with me, be with me, be with me....leave me alone.

I hold myself to a very high standard. But it's a standard I know that I can maintain. And you? Why do you let yourself be less than what you should be? Why do you let your words mean nothing?